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The Brazilian city of São Paulo has stepped up efforts to clear old graves to make way for a growing number of Covid deaths as the sprawling metropolis recorded record daily burials this week.
While the World Health Organization has warned that the pandemic has put a number of Brazilian states in “critical condition,” the gravediggers worked Thursday to open the graves of people buried years ago, bagging them. decomposed remains to move them to another location.
Relocation of remains is the norm in cemetery operations, said the city secretary responsible for funeral services. But it has taken on renewed urgency as Brazil suffers from its worst coronavirus wave since the pandemic began more than a year ago.
Brazil’s health ministry recorded its highest daily Covid toll on Wednesday for the second day in a row, with 3,869 people succumbing to the virus.
The epidemic in Brazil is the second deadliest in the world after the United States, averaging around 3,000 deaths and 75,500 new cases per day over the past week – a rate that has been climbing steadily since February.
Van Kerkhove, infectious disease epidemiologist at the WHO, warned that the increased transmissibility of the new variants was among the many challenges facing the country. A number of states are in “critical condition,” she said, and hospitals are overwhelmed.
WHO Deputy Director-General Mariangela Batista Galvão Simão stressed the importance of domestic vaccine production to relieve the pressure.
São Paulo has also resorted to nightly burials to keep up with demand, with some cemeteries being allowed to stay open until 10 p.m. In the Vila Formosa cemetery, workers wearing full face masks and protective gear dug rows of graves under floodlights and a full moon.
The coffins followed: a 32-year-old man was lowered into an ordinary wooden box. Workers buried a 77-year-old woman, whose masked relatives gathered near the grave.
The city of São Paulo recorded 419 burials on Tuesday, the highest number since the start of the pandemic. If the burials continue at this rate, the town hall said it will have to take more emergency measures, without specifying.
Brazil now accounts for around a quarter of daily Covid deaths globally, more than any other country.
Infectious disease experts warn this will only get worse, given President Jair Bolsonaro’s attacks on efforts to restrict movement and the slow rollout of vaccines.
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