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HEALTH-VIRUS-BRAZIL
Grim start to 2021 for Brazil with 200,000 Covid deaths
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 8, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Brazil’s Covid-19 death toll passed
200,000 Thursday amid a surging second wave, dousing optimism that 2021 will
bring respite anytime soon for a country whose government’s erratic handling
of the pandemic has drawn scathing criticism.
The new coronavirus has now killed 200,498 people in Brazil, according to
health ministry figures — the second-highest toll worldwide, after the
United States, where the number stands at nearly 363,000.
Brazil reported a record number of new cases — 87,843 — and the second-
highest number of daily deaths — 1,524 — since the pandemic began.
Many expected the pandemic to ease in 2021, but in Brazil, this year has
started with a firestorm of controversy over holes in the government’s
vaccination plan and far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s continued Covid-19
denialism.
The situation stands to get a lot worse in Brazil before it gets better,
warns Paulo Lotufo, an epidemiologist at the University of Sao Paulo.
“I don’t even know how we’re going to get through January,” he told AFP.
“A lot of health workers are exhausted. People have had to deal with a huge
amount of suffering.”
– Vaccine fight –
Bolsonaro, who has defied expert advice on managing the pandemic at every
turn — railing against lockdowns, face masks and other “hysteria” — has
stuck to the same script as the world starts vaccination campaigns.
Critics accuse him of fueling anti-vaccine skepticism by saying he does not
plan to be vaccinated and joking the jab could “turn you into an alligator.”
Brazil has yet to set a start date for its vaccination drive.
Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello said Thursday it would begin “by January
20, in the best-case-scenario… and at the latest by early March.”
The government has struggled to obtain enough vaccine doses for Brazil’s
212 million people. Authorities fell flat last week when they tried to
purchase enough syringes, securing less than three percent of the 300 million
it tendered.
“The government’s list of mistakes in responding to the pandemic is
unparalleled worldwide,” said political analyst Sylvio Costa, founder of the
news site Congresso em Foco.
“Bolsonaro is the most obstinate and obsessed of the Covid denialists, and
it’s creating a catastrophe.”
The president, who comes up for re-election next year, meanwhile faces a
conundrum: on January 1, the government stopped making monthly Covid relief
payments to 68 million low-income workers.
The program had helped him weather the pandemic with his popularity intact,
but fueled a skyrocketing deficit.
Bolsonaro said Tuesday that “Brazil is broke,” blaming the “press-fueled
virus.”
Analysts forecast Latin America’s biggest economy will report a contraction
of 4.36 percent for 2020 and an underwhelming rebound of 3.4 percent this
year.
– Horror show sequel? –
After finally bringing down the curves of infections and deaths from
September to November, Brazil is now seeing uncomfortable reminders of the
pandemic’s worst days.
Hospitals in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro have recently reported intensive
care units more than 90 percent full.
In the Amazon rainforest city of Manaus, where there were haunting scenes
last April of mass graves and corpses piled in refrigerator trucks, the
health system is saturated again.
With hospitalizations in Manaus recently hitting the highest level of the
pandemic, the city has again deployed refrigerator trucks to store cadavers.
A court on Saturday forced the state government to shut non-essential
businesses for 15 days.
Unlike in the first wave, suburban and rural areas are now struggling with
high caseloads, too.
Across Brazil, the number of Covid-19 deaths rose 65 percent from November
to December.
Experts fear another surge in January, after many Brazilians ignored social
distancing guidelines with large Christmas and New Year’s celebrations.
The sprawling country last week confirmed its first two cases of the new,
more contagious strain of the virus that emerged in Britain.
The plight of Brazil and other countries struggling to control the virus
matters beyond their borders, said the International Federation of Red Cross
and Red Crescent Societies.
“The fact is that no one is safe until we are all safe,” it said.
“The nature of this virus means that the world can only be as strong as the
weakest health system.”
BSS/AFP/GMR/0940 hrs