The health secretaries of Brazil’s 27 states have called on the government to impose a national curfew to prevent the collapse of the hospital network.

Despite the social distancing measures sometimes adopted by some regional governments, The health secretaries of the 27 states of Brazil demanded on Monday, in a statement, that the government impose a night and national curfew throughout the country to prevent the collapse of the hospital network in the main cities.

“Brazil is going through, perplexed, the worst moment of the crisis caused by covid-19, with very high rates in all regions,” warned the National Council of Secretaries of Health (Conass), which brings together those responsible for the health of the 27 states.

“The absence of a unified and coherent national leadership made it difficult to adopt measuresTo restrict the mobility of people, the secretaries add, in a clear allusion to the president of the country, Jair Bolsonaro, a leader, a Brazilian far-right denier who insists on downplaying the severity of the pandemic.

In his document, Conass recommended “the immediate ban on face-to-face events such as shows, congresses, religious, sporting or similar activities throughout the country”.

He also called for “the suspension of face to face activities at all levels of education in the country”., the “closure of beaches and bars” and the establishment of “a national curfew between 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. and on weekends”.

On the contrary, the head of state has again criticized the social distancing measures in recent days and declared that priority should be given to maintaining economic activity, because the unemployment caused by these restrictions “kills more” than the virus.

Despite the apparent reduction in numbers over the past two days, the average number of deaths over the past week was 1,225 per day as of Monday., the highest recorded since the start of the pandemic and on average 15.35% more than a month ago (1,062 deaths per day on February 1).

In the same way, the average number of infections last week rose to 55,977 per day on Mondays, also the highest since the start of the pandemic and 9.47% higher than the average of exactly one month ago (51,133 daily cases as of February 1).

The rise in daily averages to record levels shows that Brazil is facing a second wave of the pandemic more virulent and deadly than the first, which appears to have been exacerbated by the circulation of new strains of the virus, among which is the virus. saying Brazilian variant, which, according to the Ministry of Health, is three times more contagious than the original.

This aggravation, Along with the rise in hospitalizations, it threatens to cause a collapse of the healthcare system in much of the country and forced many regional governments to re-impose strict social distancing measures.

The health care systems of 13 of the 27 states threaten to collapse due to the advancing pandemic as they have a Occupancy rate of intensive care units (ICU) above 80% of their capacity.

Brazil, one of the countries hardest hit by the covid-19 pandemic in the world, recorded 778 new deaths and 35,742 new infections with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in the past 24 hours, making nearly 256,000 victims since the start of the health crisis and 10.6 million cases.

According to the bulletin published on Monday by the Ministry of Health, Brazil has accumulated 10,587,001 infections since it recorded the first case of the disease on February 26 last year and 255,720 deaths since the first victim was recorded on March 12, 2020.

Figures like this confirm the Latin American giant, with its 210 million inhabitants, as one of the global epicenters of covid-19 and as the second country with the most deaths from the disease in the world, surpassed only by the United States, and as the third with the most infections, behind the country of North America and India.

Monday’s figures were similar to Sunday’s (721 deaths and 34,027 cases) but far lower than those the country recorded until Saturday., while the average number of deaths was around 1,150 per day and the number of infections was 53,400.

This sharp reduction, according to the Ministry of Health itself, is due to the decrease in the number of officials processing data during the weekend, resulting in a drop in statistics on Sundays and Mondays, and an increase on Tuesday, when the numbers are updated. .

According to the ministry, the death rate from the virus in Brazil rose to 122 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants on Monday, while the incidence of the disease reached 5,038 infected people per 100,000 people. The death rate from the disease remained at 2.4% of the total population.

For more than a month, the average number of deaths due to covid-19 in the South American giant has exceeded 1,000 deaths per day and that of infections has exceeded 50,000 per day.

With information from EFE

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