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(Addition of the comment on the Bolsonaro vaccine in paragraph 10)
By Eduardo Simões and Amanda Perobelli
SAO PAULO, April 1 (Reuters) – Brazil’s largest city on Thursday ramped up efforts to clear old graves, making way for a growing number of deaths from COVID-19 as Sao Paulo City Hall recorded reports of Record daily burials this week.
Gravediggers at the Vila Nova Cachoeirinha cemetery in the north of the city worked in white hazmat suits to open the graves of those buried years ago, bagging the decomposed remains for transfer to another place.
Relocation of remains is the norm in cemetery operations, the city secretary responsible for funeral services said in a statement. But it has taken on a new emergency as Brazil suffers from its worst coronavirus wave since the pandemic began more than a year ago.
Brazil’s health ministry reported 3,769 new deaths from COVID-19 on Thursday, narrowly missing a daily record for a third day in a row.
Bolivia said Thursday it would close its borders with Brazil, citing concerns over a new variant of the disease detected in its larger neighbor.
A day earlier, the Brazilian Biomedical Institute Butantan said it had detected a new variant sharing similarities with a variant first seen in South Africa, which appears to be more resistant to existing vaccines. The South African variant is more contagious, as is an earlier variant found in Brazil.
Chile also closed its borders to all foreigners on Thursday, while tightening a severe lockdown, exceeding the one million cases recorded since the start of the pandemic.
“What is happening in Brazil is a global threat,” said José Miguel Bernucci, secretary of the National Medical Association of Chile. “Closing the borders will not help us so much with the variants that we already have here, but with the new variants that can continue to be created.”
Countries in the region have expressed concern that Brazil is fertile ground for new variants, as cases rise and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro refuses to support masks and lockdowns.
Having previously expressed his skepticism about vaccinations, Bolsonaro said on Thursday he would not decide whether he would receive a vaccine himself until after all Brazilians had been vaccinated.
Brazil has been slow to roll out its vaccination campaign, with only around 7% of the population having received a first vaccine.
The epidemic in Brazil is the second deadliest in the world after the United States, averaging around 3,100 deaths and 74,000 new cases per day over the past week – a rate that has been climbing steadily since February.
Sao Paulo has also resorted to nightly burials to keep up with demand, with cemeteries being allowed to stay open until 10 p.m.
In the Vila Formosa cemetery, workers wearing masks and full protective gear dug rows of graves under the spotlight and full moon this week.
The coffins followed. A 32-year-old man lowered into an ordinary wooden box. A 77-year-old woman, whose masked relatives have gathered near the grave.
The city of Sao 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 currently accounts for about a quarter of daily COVID-19 deaths globally, more than any other country.
Infectious disease experts warn the situation will only get worse, given weak movement restrictions and slow vaccine deployment.
The World Health Organization said Thursday that Brazilian hospitals were in critical condition, with many intensive care units 90% full.
“Indeed, a very serious situation is currently unfolding in Brazil, where we have a number of states in critical condition,” WHO epidemiologist Maria van Kerkhove said in a briefing. (Reporting by Eduardo Simoes and Amanda Perobelli Additional reporting by Aislinn Laing and Maria Carolina Marcello Writing by Jake Spring Editing by Brad Haynes, Aurora Ellis and Marguerita Choy)
Our Standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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