Health

Brazil exceeds 100,000 daily Covid cases, increasing pressure on Bolsonaro

São Paulo, Mar 25 (efe-epa).- Brazil recorded more than 100,000 Covid-19 cases on Thursday, a new daily record, as pressure on President Jair Bolsonaro grows to solve the health crisis.

The number of cases already exceeds 12.3 million, with 100,158 new infections registered in the last day alone, according to the Ministry of Health.

The country, which has recorded more than 303,000 deaths and on Thursday reported another 2,777, has the highest number of fatalities from Covid-19 per day, well above the average for the United States (1,024) and Mexico (560), which follow, according to the World Health Organization.

In the week of Mar. 15-21, Brazil contributed 25 percent of the world’s Covid-19 deaths. The current average is almost 2,300 a day in the country.

With the public health system almost collapsed and reserves of medicines for the most serious patients running low, Bolsonaro complained on Thursday that the coronavirus crisis overshadowed the actions of his government in other areas.

Almost in parallel, Vice President Hamilton Mourão acknowledged to journalists that the number of deaths already exceeds “the limits of common sense.”

Intensive care units across the country are overflowing with the surge of infections, caused in part by the circulation of more infectious variants.

This is the case in the municipal hospital “O Centenário” in São Leopoldo, in the metropolitan area of Porto Alegre, which is treating patients beyond its capacity with 18 ICU beds.

Over the last weekend, 11 patients who were admitted died. The bodies were taken to the hospital chapel, which is used as a kind of morgue, where relatives say goodbye to their loved ones, according to Efe.

Vaccination in this town progresses very slowly, as in all of Brazil, where the first dose has been given to only 6.3 percent of the population.

On the other hand, in São Paulo, the Mayor’s Office announced on Thursday the installation of 19 oxygen plants to guarantee supply to the city’s hospitals, whose reserves were beginning to run low.

“We have reached a point in the whole country where there is no control,” Dr Fábio Gaudenzi, a consultant for the Brazilian Society of Infectious Diseases who is now on sick leave due to the stress caused by the pandemic, told Efe.

He warned the situation may become even more complicated in the coming weeks, as from April the season conducive to the circulation of other respiratory viruses, such as influenza, will begin, which could put more pressure on the hospital network.

Fluminense Federal University released a study on Wednesday in which it stated that Brazil could reach 5,000 daily deaths from Covid between the end of April and the beginning of May. EFE-EPA

cms/tw

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