More than a thousand cities threatened by lack of oxygen, …

While Brazil is going through the worst time of the pandemic, with increasing cases of coronavirus and the appearance of new variants, the National Council of Municipal Secretaries of Health (Conasems) reported that more than a thousand Brazilian cities suffer from oxygen supply problems.

According to different health authorities, at least 1,068 municipalities have said they risk running out of oxygen tube supplies in the coming days if the COVID-19 case curve remains high.

In a complex scenario, the report prepared by Conasems predicts that the number of municipalities in difficulty could be even higher, since only one party replied to the questionnaire from which the report was issued. Only 2,411 municipalities sent data.

“It’s a national problem”

The register began to be prepared in the last two weeks of March and was completed last Tuesday. It is specified that the main problem is the dependence on oxygen tubes, indicated by 87% of municipalities as the main obstacle in the face of the pandemic.

Blenda Pereira, technical advisor to the town hall, mentioned a possible shortage in the coming days, some responses even reaching the beginning of the balance sheet. “We see it is a national problem”, he claimed.

Some states and the Department of Health took emergency measures to reduce the risk of a possible shortage, such as distributing additional tubes, which alleviated the situation. However, Mauro Junqueira“Assured the executive secretary of Conasems that” this continues to be a worrying scenario that must be watched.

In turn, Geraldo Reple Sobrinho, president of the council of municipal secretaries of health of the state, indicated that “some regions are still in a critical situation”.

Gloves, masks and aprons are also missing

The Council’s balance also called into question the lack of other contributions. The most common in limited stocks were gloves, masks and aprons.

Former Brazilian President Lula da Silva on Thursday criticized the management of the pandemic by Jair’s government Bolsonaro and he warned that “global governance” allowing equitable distribution of the vaccine is imperative to deal with the spread of the virus which has already claimed 2.89 million lives worldwide.

In a post on his Twitter, the former president said that “341,000 dead is an absurd number. Few wars in the world have killed so many people”, to later criticize that this “should have been the subject of the dinner Bolsonaro had yesterday with businessmen. But they don’t seem to care.”

Lula spoke after the South American giant reported 92,625 COVID-19 infections in a single day – 5,646 more than the day before – alarming statistics that brought the cumulative total to nearly 13.2 million infections and 340,776 deaths, according to official sources. Despite the strength of the numbers, Bolsonaro yesterday ruled out once again the possibility of establishing a confinement of the population at the national level.