Let's take a look at a psychopathic leader who made unbelievable mistakes in the handling of COVID killing hundreds of thousands of the country's citizens. You are just surprised the article is not about the United States prior January 20th. Brazil official calls president a "psychopathic leader" who made "unbelievable mistakes" in Covid-19 crisis https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-...s-03-22-21/h_55f6493dd7734796d1f31cf058d69832 Brazil's Sao Paulo state Gov. Joao Doria called Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro a "psychopathic leader" and criticized the president's response to the Covid-19 pandemic in an interview with CNN's Julia Chatterley on Monday. "We are in one of those tragic moments in history when millions of people pay a high price for having an unprepared and psychopathic leader in charge of a nation," he said on CNN's First Move. Doria said much of the deaths from the virus in Brazil could have been avoided if Bolsonaro had "acted with the responsibility that the position gives him." He added that Bolsonaro made "unbelievable mistakes, the biggest one was having a political dispute with the governors who are trying to protect the population." Bolsonaro has repeatedly opposed lockdowns and restrictive measures and has criticized governors and mayors for implementing them. He has also been seen greeting crowds of his supporters during the pandemic, without wearing a mask, and has advocated for drugs like hydroxychloroquine to treat the virus- a drug which has no proven effectiveness in combatting Covid-19. The governor went on to say that he is facing the biggest challenge of his life as governor of Brazil's most populous state and that he had to restructure the healthcare system in "record time" and look for ways to mitigate the economic crisis that hit the country during the pandemic. He spoke about the gravity of the state of hospitals and ICUs in Sao Paulo, saying they have already tripled the number of ICU beds and this month will open 12 field hospitals in the state. On vaccinations, the governor said of 90% of the vaccines in Brazil are produced by the Butantan Institute in Sao Paulo — linked to the Sao Paulo government — and that by the end of August, they will have made 100 million vaccines available across the country. "It is still not enough," he said, adding that the federal government in March started buying vaccines while Sao Paulo state began in April of last year. The second wave of Covid-19 is ripping through Brazil, pushing hospitals and ICUs toward collapse and claiming record numbers of daily deaths. While a new variant of the coronavirus spreads throughout the country, many Brazilians continue to defy mask mandates mobility restrictions following the example of President Jair Bolsonaro, who recently said people need to "stop being sissies" and "whining" about the virus. Brazil has reported a total of 11,998,233 Covid-19 cases and 294,042 Covid-19 related deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the country's health ministry.
Let's see what world records jem's version of a no lockdown paradise is breaking today... Brazil posts record single-day toll of 3,251 coronavirus deaths https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coron...ay-toll-of-3-251-coronavirus-deaths-1.5359525 Brazil reported more than 3,000 COVID-19 deaths in a single day for the first time Tuesday amid calls for the government and the new health minister to take action to stem the nation's resurgence of coronavirus infections. In recent weeks, Latin America's largest country has become the pandemic's global epicenter, with more deaths from the virus each day than in any other nation. Tuesday's record toll of 3,251 deaths was driven by the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil's most populous, which recorded 1,021 new deaths, far above the previous high of 713 last July. The pandemic has brought the health systems of Brazilian states to near collapse, with hospitals watching their ICU beds fill up and stocks of oxygen required for assisted breathing dwindle. Most of the states in recent days adopted measures to restrict activity, over the fierce resistance of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. In a 4-minute presidential address on TV and radio, Bolsonaro did not comment on the new record and said Brazilians will "very soon return to normal life." "We will make 2021 the year of the vaccination of Brazilians," Bolsonaro said, as pot banging protests against his government erupted in major cities. "That is the mission and we will accomplish it." Bolsonaro has consistently downplayed the severity of the pandemic, insisting the economy must be kept humming to prevent worse hardship, and he has criticized health measures imposed by local leaders. On Friday, he appealed to the Supreme Court to invalidate curfews enacted by two states and Brazil's federal district, though the top court previously ruled that governors and mayors have the power to adopt such restrictions. Public health experts and economists have said Bolsonaro is presenting a false choice between preserving health and economic well-being. On Tuesday, cardiologist Marcelo Queiroga was sworn in as health minister, becoming the fourth person to occupy the post since the beginning of the health crisis. He replaced active-duty army Gen. Eduardo Pazuello. Queiroga's swearing-in was delayed a week while he divested holdings in companies in the health sector and the government sought to find a suitable position for Pazuello, Brazilian media reported. Carlos Lula, chairman of the national council of state health secretaries, said in a statement that the coronavirus crisis has been worsened by delays in acquiring vaccines and a lack of communication on the importance of preventative measures. He called on the new minister to collaborate with state and municipal governments. "More than ever, the population needs national co-ordination to face COVID-19, with precise actions, based on science, that guarantee prevention of new infections, facilitate the timely diagnosis of sick people and provide assistance for all Brazilians," Lula said in the statement. Seven of Brazil's 26 states have reported problems ensuring sufficient oxygen supply, the health ministry told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The agency said it plans to dispatch hundreds of oxygen cylinders and install oxygen plants. Hundreds of Brazilian economists, including former finance ministers and central bank presidents, urged the Brazilian government in an open letter published Monday to speed up vaccination and adopt tougher restrictions to stop the spread of the coronavirus, including possible lockdowns. "This recession, as well as its harmful social consequences, was caused by the pandemic and will not be overcome until the pandemic is controlled through competent action from the federal government," the letter read. "The controversy surrounding economic impacts of social distancing reflects the false dilemma of saving lives versus guaranteeing the sustenance of a vulnerable population," it added. Brazil's total death toll is closing in on 300,000, the world's second highest behind that of the United States, according to the tally maintained by Johns Hopkins University.
Far-right extremists who want no COVID restrictions threaten to kill mayors who implement them... all the while Brazil hits world record death totals. Welcome to the no-lockdown paradise where "natural herd immunity" is running wild. Brazil Is Looking Like The Worst Place On Earth For COVID-19 NPR - https://tinyurl.com/3mtdaeuc Supporters of Brazilian President Bolsonaro protest during a demonstration on March 14 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. During a recent speech, Bolsonaro yanked off his face mask and lambasted local officials who are imposing restrictions in towns and cities across the country. RIO DE JANEIRO — Cinthia Ribeiro knew she had a fight on her hands when COVID-19 arrived in her hometown in Brazil. What she didn't know was that, one year on, humans would be out to kill her too. Ribeiro is mayor of Palmas, capital of Tocantins, a small state wedged between the south-eastern edge of the Amazon rain forest and the Cerrado, South America's tropical savanna. The fresh wave of infections now racing across the landscape has reached her city, flooding hospitals with patients, and pushing intensive care unit occupancy rates up to 96%. The country is now widely viewed as the epicenter of the pandemic, with the highest number of daily deaths of any nation. On Tuesday, that number topped 3,000 for the first time, with 3,251 deaths recorded. And this week, Brazil's registered COVID-19 deaths will rise above 300,000 — a toll exceeded only by the United States. Ribeiro bleakly remarks that this number is about the same as the population of her city. Worried that local health systems would collapse, and there would be many more deaths than the several hundred already logged by Palmas city officials, Mayor Ribeiro tried to buy time. This month, she placed her city under what she calls a "partial lockdown." She shut down the beaches in her jurisdiction along the 106-mile-long lake and banned the public from visiting parks and waterfalls. Supermarkets, bars and restaurants were restricted to deliveries only. Then came the backlash "I have suffered real and serious threats against my life," Ribeiro, 44, told NPR. She says she was bombarded with death threats on her cellphone and social media platforms. A crowd gathered outside her apartment block, yelling abusive comments. People raced by in cars in the middle of the night, shooting fireworks at the building. Ribeiro finds it astonishing these attacks by who she says are far-right extremists would happen in the middle of a catastrophic pandemic. "We are trying to save lives! We are fighting against a health crisis," she said. "Yet our lives are being endangered as well." Public health systems in 'collapse' In more than half of the country's 26 states, ICU occupancy rates have hit 90% or above, according to a bulletin posted March 16 by the Brazilian medical research institution Fiocruz. Brazil's public health systems are "living through the worst collapse in history," it read. There have been numerous reports in Brazilian media and on social media platforms of patients dying while waiting for beds, shortages of medicines and oxygen, and bodies being dumped in hospital corridors. Once admired worldwide for its fast and efficient national immunization drives, Brazil has seen it's COVID-19 vaccination program plagued by political in-fighting, bureaucratic blunders and supply problems. So far, three COVID-19 vaccines have been authorized by Brazil's health regulators: - AstraZeneca, Coronavac and Pfizer. Fewer than 7% of Brazilians have had one dose. "The situation is very, very concerning," says Tedros Adhanom, director-general of the World Health Organization., "Brazil has to take it seriously." Yet, say medical professionals, that is easier said than done. A president who yanks off his mask Brazil's president, Jair Bolsonaro, turned 66 last Sunday. He marked the occasion by appearing before hundreds of flag-waving supporters outside the presidential palace who, with zero regard for physical distancing, gathered there to sing "Parabéns" (the traditional birthday congratulations) and hand him a birthday cake decorated in Brazil's yellow and green national colors. Standing before the cheering crowd, Bolsonaro yanked off his face mask and began lambasting governors and mayors who are imposing restrictions in towns and cities across the country. "Some little tyrants, or tyrants, hinder the freedom of many of you," said the retired army captain. He declared that Brazilians could "count on the armed forces" to defend their liberty and democracy, including the constitutional right to free movement, without explaining how the military might do that. "I will do anything for my people!" he declared. This month, Bolsonaro petitioned the Supreme Court to stop three governors from imposing nighttime curfews. Although they are usually lightly enforced in Brazil, he calls them with "a state of siege." He no longer dismisses COVID-19 as "a little flu." Yet he maintains lockdowns are more harmful than the virus because they create mass unemployment. That "leads to depression, violence, fights, deaths and chaos," he warned his audience on Facebook Live. Last year his government prevented the pandemic from unleashing a wave of poverty by making emergency payments of $110 a month to more than 65 million Brazilians. Now, facing growing debt, it has cut that sum to $27 — far too little to survive on. Bolsonaro predicts even more trouble. "Shops will be looted, buses will be torched, there will be serious unrest," he declared. Frustration and fear in the medical community Brazil's medical professionals and scientists are watching their president with disdain and alarm, and worrying about what will happen next. "Brazil now represents a threat to global public health," says Dr. Pedro Hallal, co-ordinator of Epicovid-19, the largest epidemiological study into the coronavirus in Brazil. With the virus out of control, he believes Brazil is a breeding ground for more variants, that could prove even more lethal and spread to other countries. "The virus is circulating so widely in Brazil that it is possible, and I would say likely, that new variants will appear in the near future. We need to stop that urgently," he said. Hallal wants an international task force, comprised of governments, health organizations and pharmaceutical companies, to get far more vaccines to Brazil as soon as possible. If not, "global efforts to control COVID-19 will be jeopardized", he says. The return of Lula Consensus is also growing among the upper echelons of Brazil that Bolsonaro's handling of the pandemic is a disaster that is causing many avoidable deaths at home, and massive reputational damage abroad. Hundreds of prominent figures from the financial world — including ex-ministers and five former presidents of Brazil's Central Bank — have published an open letter criticizing his government's conduct. Although the letter does not name Bolsonaro, it complains that Brazil's "largest political leadership" shows "a disdain for science, looks to remedies without evidence of their effectiveness, encourages crowds, and flirts with the anti-vax movement." The signatories are calling for a nationally coordinated policy of social distancing including: a national lock-down if necessary; a federal-level COVID-19 coordinating body advised by scientists and specialists; free masks; and far more vaccines as soon as possible. Adding to the pressure on Bolsonaro is the return to the limelight of his chief adversary, former presidentLuiz Inácio Lula da Silva, universally known as "Lula.". On March 8, a judge annulled Lula's corruption convictions, allowing him — at least for now — to run in next year's elections. The charismatic 75-year-old leftist announced his unexpected comeback by berating Bolsonaro for his "ignorant" pandemic response, and getting vaccinated on TV. Most Brazilians appear eager to follow Lula's example: 84% want to be vaccinated, according to a Datafolha poll published on March 20. Mayane Brito, 32, a district nurse, travels around remote villages in Paraíbain north-east Brazil, administering vaccines. She says elderly patients are "laughing in their eyes,", when they see her arrive. Yet there are not nearly enough vaccines, and the overall picture in her area is "a calamity,", she says. After jesting that vaccines might "turn you into a crocodile," and declaring he would never have the injection, Bolsonaro has begun to shift ground: He now loudly advertises his health ministry's vaccination efforts, and claims Brazil will acquire "500 million doses" this year. Even if true, that is too late, says Margareth Dalcomo, a respiratory physician and researcher at Fiocruz. "We need vaccines now! We have to intercept the transmission of this virus in the community. We already have four variants . . . responsible for most of the cases in seven states of Brazil. This is [a] very, very worrying fact." Dr. Hallal puts this in starker terms: "If we do not have enough vaccines in the next 30 to 45 days, the situation will be terrible --- not only for Brazil, but for the rest of the world."
Let's see how jem's classic example of a no-lockdown paradise which is actively working on natural herd immunity is doing today. Oh, it's the saddest place on earth. 'Saddest March of our lives': Brazilians lament Covid devastation as critics decry Bolsonaro https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/25/brazil-coronavirus-bolsonaro-300000-deaths As country reaches 300,000 fatalities, doctors condemn ‘politics of death’ but pledge to fight on Like so many on Brazil’s left, Pedro Carvalho was certain Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency would prove a nightmare: for human rights, for the environment and for the national health system the 41-year-old doctor cherishes and serves. “I felt this profound sadness, just utter, personal sadness,” Carvalho remembered of the fateful moment in October 2018 that the far-right populist was confirmed as his country’s new leader. “He’d been a politician for 30 years. Everyone knew who he was,” the intensive care physician said of the dictatorship-praising former paratrooper. “He is hatred. He is hatred itself.” Back then, of course, nobody knew Brazil was also barreling towards its most devastating public health catastrophe since the Spanish flu, or that Bolsonaro would so ruinously mishandle an epidemic that has now killed more than 300,000 of his citizens, his wife’s grandmother included. “We thought perhaps he might delegate the response to a health minister and leave them to it … while he sat around making gun signs with his hands,” Carvalho said of Brazil’s pro-gun president. He was mistaken. From the start of Brazil’s Covid epidemic last February, Bolsonaro busied himself trivializing its dangers, shunning face masks, sabotaging social distancing and urging citizens to reject lockdown. In less than a year he has forced three health ministers from power, two for questioning his championing of bogus treatments such as the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine. The consequences, say critics, have been deadly. On 24 March 2020, with Brazil’s Covid death toll at 46, Bolsonaro claimed the pandemic was being exaggerated “and soon it will pass”. On Wednesday, exactly a year later, the number of fatalities surpassed 300,000 after a record 3,000 lives were lost for the first time in a single day. Only the US, governed until January by Bolsonaro’s rightwing inspiration, Donald Trump, has suffered greater losses, with scant sign of Brazil’s outbreak being brought under control. “We are adrift,” said Carvalho, who has a front-row seat to the tragedy at his ICU in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco, where all beds are now full. “What we are witnessing is the politics of death.” Carvalho said he felt a mix of dejection and disgust as he reflected on Bolsonaro’s role in a calamity now steaming into its deadliest phase because of a months-long collapse of containment measures and the more contagious P1 variant linked to the Brazilian Amazon. “I don’t expect things to improve, not for now at least,” he said, pointing to the country’s faltering vaccination efforts. “As a health professional, I wish … I could tell people: ‘Hang on people, we’ll get through this.’ But I just don’t see it. I can’t offer people words of encouragement any more.” Carvalho is not alone in his pessimism, with some Brazilians so crestfallen they have begun draping black cloths from their windows to mourn victims and demand Bolsonaro’s impeachment. “We are having the saddest March of our lives,” said Margareth Dalcolmo, a Rio-based professor whose straight-talking Covid media appearances have made her a South American equivalent to England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty. Dalcolmo, a sparkly 65-year-old pulmonologist, said she made a daily effort to remain positive despite the deepening gloom. “There’s a Brazilian author called Guimarães Rosa and he wrote the most beautiful thing: ‘Such is life: it becomes warm and then cools, it tightens then loosens, it settles and then jolts. What it asks of us is courage.’” But after 13 months in which she had lost patients and friends, and fallen ill herself, staying upbeat was a challenge. “I used to joke that we’ll finish this epidemic with more scars than skin,” she said, remembering one friend, a celebrated surgeon called Ricardo Cruz, who died in December. “He was wonderful human being, a wonderful doctor, a very dear friend,” Dalcolmo said. “The price in human life, the mourning, is something that will never be recovered – never.” Advertisement Dalcolmo said Brazil should have been well positioned to counter Covid, thanks to its NHS-inspired health service, SUS, the largest in the world, and an immunisation programme capable of delivering over a million shots a day. But the government failed to buy sufficient vaccines and bamboozled the population by denying science and pushing unproven remedies. The future looked bleak. When historians look back on Brazil’s epidemic, “they will write a sad story”, Dalcolmo predicted, “and even with some components, I would say, of villainy, you know?” With polls suggesting mounting public anger, Bolsonaro sought to strike a conciliatory tone this week, announcing the creation of a coronavirus committee more than a year after the epidemic began. In a televised address Bolsonaro claimed his administration had fought “tirelessly” against Covid and to avoid “economic chaos” and was committed to a vaccination campaign he has repeatedly undermined. That intervention sparked pot-banging protests and cries of “murderer!” across Brazil, including in the riverside city of Petrolina, where Carvalho is battling to save lives. The doctor could not join the jeering after a raging fever and throat infection forced him to abandon the frontline on Sunday after intubating an elderly woman close to cardiac arrest. But Carvalho watched Bolsonaro’s proclamation from his sick bed and, like many Brazilians, was unconvinced and incensed. “Just one lie after the other,” he scoffed of the claim normality would soon return. Despite their bearing the brunt of Brazil’s failure, Carvalho was convinced his SUS colleagues would keep fighting, insisting: “We won’t step back. We won’t give up.” But he felt physically and emotionally shattered and looked to Colombian literature to describe the psychological toll of being at the eye of this Brazilian storm. “Tú no sabes lo que pesa un muerto,” he said, quoting Gabriel García Márquez. “You can’t imagine how much a dead man weighs.”
You would think that economists would welcome no lock-downs and all businesses being open -- even with COVID being highly prevalent. After all this is jem's vision of paradise in the COVID era -- the economy matters more than the people -- let's just "lock up the high risk". Well... let's see what the economists in Brazil are doing. Oh.. they are demanding the country be completely locked-down immediately. Oh, my. But isn't the economy good with everything open. No? What do you mean the worst economic performance in the nation's history and performing worse than all the locked-down countries in the region. Brazil sees highest COVID-19 death tolls of the pandemic, economists call for 'emergency lockdown' https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...naro-urged-use-emergency-lockdown/6965752002/ Hundreds of Brazilian economists, including former finance ministers and central bank presidents, urged the Brazilian government in an open letter this week to speed up vaccination and adopt tougher restrictions to stop the rampant spread of COVID-19. The signatories of the letter decried the “devastating” economic and social situation in Latin America’s largest nation. They also attempted to debunk President Jair Bolsonaro’s assertion that lockdowns and restrictions would inflict greater hardship on the population than the disease. “This recession, as well as its harmful social consequences, was caused by the pandemic and will not be overcome until the pandemic is controlled through competent action from the federal government,” the letter read. “It is urgent that the different levels of government prepare to implement an emergency lockdown.” The nation had an average of 2,235 deaths a day last week – the highest since the beginning of the pandemic. So far, Brazil has had more than 12 million cases and nearly 300,000 people have died, the second-largest COVID-19 death toll in the world after the United States, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Brazil’s gross domestic product contracted 4.1% in 2020, the biggest annual recession in decades. The economists said the fall in activity alone cost Brazil a loss in tax collection of 6.9%, approximately 58 billion reais ($10.5 billion). Since the beginning of the pandemic, Bolsonaro has fought against restrictions on the economy adopted by state governors and mayors. Just last week, the president sought to lift restrictions imposed in the Federal District, Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul via the Supreme Court, online news site G1 reported. Brazil Economy Minister Paulo Guedes said Monday that mass vaccination had to be accelerated “to ensure a safe return to work”, especially for the most vulnerable. Doctors had to choose who got oxygen Brazil’s vast size and deficient infrastructure make getting coronavirus vaccines to far-flung communities of Indigenous peoples and descendants of enslaved people a particularly daunting endeavor. Manaus – a city in the Amazon – suffered a devastating second wave of COVID-19 cases in January, driven by a more contagious strain of the virus. Hospitals lacked oxygen for weeks and doctors had to choose which intensive care patients to put on ventilators. So far, 71% of about 15,000 Indigenous people in the Manaus region have received their first shots, and 52% had their second jabs this week, said Januário Carneiro, coordinator of the Manaus region’s Indigenous health care unit. Members of the remote Baré group in Amazonas state received their vaccine jabs Wednesday after health workers traveled more than two hours from the state capital of Manaus, up the Cuieiras River to the village of Nova Esperança (New Hope). Its chief, José Prancácio, said the whole village was infected with the coronavirus after people traveling to Manaus for food brought the virus home. Vaccine challenges: Rough travels, keeping doses cold in a tropical region Some villagers initially had rejected the shots. Carneiro has spent hours convincing Indigenous people the vaccines are safe, and says he has been successful. After Reinaldo de Souza Santos, 37, received his shot, he held up his vaccine card to display stickers proving he had gotten both his shots. “My people are now calm and very happy about this vaccine,” Prancácio said. “Until there’s a vaccine, a lot of people die. But today, thank God, we’re 100% satisfied.” However, nurse Rosemeire Bezerra's biggest challenge in the current vaccination drive is keeping vaccine doses below 8 degrees Celsius (46 degrees Fahrenheit) in an isolated, tropical region. It’s especially sweltering in the Valley of Souls (Vão de Almas, in Portuguese), where she was headed this week. On Monday, Bezerra protected plastic foam coolers with cardboard shells and filled them with ice. She intended to vaccinate 190 families within four days, before that ice melted. She set off with her team and three others, including an experienced driver familiar with the remote region. Houses in the Valley of Souls are far apart, and chewed-up dirt roads make for a jolting journey that complicates keeping a cooler balanced on laps. The many river crossings test the four-wheel-drive vehicles, too. Access is so poor that Bezerra and her staffers often vaccinate people they encounter on the roadside or tending to crops in their fields, as they might not have another chance. Some areas are reached only by foot, and they have to carry in their own food and water. “It is a very poor community, with some places that can only be reached by special pick-up trucks,” Bezerra said. “Our team didn’t spare any effort. We needed to give them some hope.”
Let's see how things are going this week in the no-lockdown paradise envisioned by "natural herd immunity" advocates. Brazil is the most perfect example of what these characters have been proposing -- let's see how their utopia is doing and ask why they have not booked their flights yet to go there. So much for the young don't get badly sick and die... Brazilian officials raise alarm over younger people getting virus in latest deadly surge Brazil passed 300,000 total deaths earlier this week https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/covid-brazil-young-people-warning-b1823137.html With so many naturally immune people you would think the hospitals are doing well... Signs of collapse across Brazil as Covid spirals out of control. Bolsonaro seems to have little response https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/27/americas/brazil-covid-19-collapse-intl/index.html Since they followed "The Great Barrington Declaration Guidelines" so well then certainly things could only get better from here... Brazil faces the coronavirus abyss. It has the highest daily deaths in the world and the COVID-19 crisis is going to get worse, experts warn. https://www.businessinsider.com/bra...matoriums-overwhelmed-bolsonaro-blamed-2021-3 Well maybe Brazil's vaccine effort will save them... Brazil’s Foreign Minister Seen Leaving Job Over Virus Diplomacy https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...inister-seen-leaving-job-over-virus-diplomacy
Brazil is the no-lock paradise envisioned by "Great Barrington Declaration" advocates who push "natural herd immunity", "keep everything open", and "only lockdown the at-risk". Let's see what business is actually booming in Brazil... Oh, it's grave diggers. Sao Paulo exhumes old graves to make space for surging COVID-19 burials https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-brazil-idINKBN2BO6KP Brazil’s biggest city on Thursday sped up efforts to empty old graves, making room for a soaring number of COVID-19 deaths as Sao Paulo city hall registered record daily burials this week. Gravediggers in the Vila Nova Cachoeirinha cemetery in the city’s northern reaches worked in white hazmat suits to open the tombs of people buried years ago, bagging decomposed remains for removal to another location. Relocating remains is standard in cemetery operations, said the municipal secretary responsible for funeral services, in a statement. But it has taken on new urgency as Brazil suffers its worse coronavirus wave since the pandemic began over a year ago. Brazil’s Health Ministry reported 3,769 new COVID-19 deaths on Thursday, narrowly missing a daily record for a third straight day. Bolivia announced on Thursday that it would shut its borders to Brazil, citing concerns over a new variant of the disease detected in its larger neighbor. A day earlier, Brazilian biomedical institute Butantan said that it had detected a new variant that shared similarities with one first seen in South Africa, which appears more resistant to existing vaccines. The South African variant is more contagious, as is an earlier variant discovered in Brazil. Chile also closed its borders to all foreigners on Thursday, while tightening a severe lockdown, as it surpassed 1 million cases recorded since the start of the pandemic. “What is happening in Brazil is a global menace,” said José Miguel Bernucci, secretary of Chile’s National Medical Association. “Closing the borders won’t help us so much with the variants that we already have here, but with the new variants that can continue to be created.” Countries around the region have expressed concern that Brazil is a breeding ground for new variants, as cases surge and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro refuses to support masks and lockdowns. Having previously expressed skepticism about immunizations, Bolsonaro said on Thursday he would only decide whether he would receive a vaccine himself after all Brazilians have been vaccinated. Brazil has been slow to roll out its vaccine campaign, with only about 7% of the population having received a first shot. Brazil’s outbreak is the second-deadliest in the world after the United States, averaging about 3,100 deaths and 74,000 new cases per day over the past week - a rate that has climbed steadily since February. Sao Paulo has also resorted to late-night burials to keep up with demand, with cemeteries authorized to stay open to 10 p.m. In the Vila Formosa cemetery, workers in masks and full protective gear have been digging rows of graves under flood lights and a full moon this week. The coffins have followed. A 32-year-old man lowered down in a plain wooden box. A 77-year-old woman, whose masked relatives gathered near the grave. The city of Sao Paulo registered 419 burials on Tuesday, the most since the pandemic began. If burials continue at that pace, city hall said it will need to take more contingency measures, without specifying. Brazil currently accounts for about a quarter of COVID-19 daily deaths worldwide, more than any other country. Infectious disease experts warn that it will only get worse, given weak restrictions on movement and a slow rollout of vaccines. The World Health Organization on Thursday said Brazilian hospitals were in critical condition, with many intensive care units 90% full. “Indeed there is a very serious situation going on in Brazil right now, where we have a number of states in critical condition,” WHO epidemiologist Maria van Kerkhove told a briefing.
Let's take a look at what happens when you allow COVID to widely spread across the population as per the "natural herd immunity" and "no lockdown" advocates. New variants of COVID quickly evolve within the highly infected population. Of course these new variants are more infectious and more lethal -- because that is what happens when you allow a virus to freely spread. These new variants don't merely impact the location where they evolved but quickly spread worldwide. Covid 19 coronavirus: Brazil strain three times more deadly for those aged 18-45, research shows https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/co...45-research-shows/A4LAA4JTXZK2XMSKOLPKHQWMJI/ The new coronavirus variant sweeping through Brazil, and spreading to other nations around the world, is proving to be up to three times more deadly for young people, according to research. It is also spreading more quickly among younger people with cases among Brazilians in their 30s, 40s, and 50s are up by 565 per cent, 626 per cent and 525 per cent respectively since the beginning of January, according to Brazilian public health institute Fiocruz. In comparison, during the same periods the increase in the overall population was much lower at 316 per cent, suggesting the virus infections are making "a shift to younger age groups". There is also growing evidence shows that young people are not only more likely to get infected with the new strain – dubbed P. 1 – but also to die from it. The Brazilian Association of Intensive Care Medicine said that the number of 18 to 45-year-olds requiring intensive care for Covid-19 in February to March this year was three times greater than in September to November 2020, and coronavirus-related deaths in that age group have almost doubled. The data showed a massive 193 per cent increase in coronavirus-related deaths for Brazilians aged 18 to 45, increasing from 13.1 per cent to 38.5 per cent, between the first and second waves. On the frontline in Brazil, doctors and nurses are noticing an increasingly young cohort of Covid patients filling beds. "Last year, we had more critical elderly patients. Now, it's completely distinct. We're dealing with a substantial number of severe patients in their 30s to 50s," Dr Anne Menezes from Getulio Vargas Hospital in the jungle city of Manaus, told Al Jazeera. The 29-year-old said seeing younger patients die is particularly devastating. "We've recently lost patients my age. It could have been me. We fought hard to save them, but there comes a point when you have to stop," she said. Variant more infectious and spreading globally The variant is widely agreed to be more infectious and transmissible generally – by as much as 2.2 times – and 25 to 61 per cent more capable of reinfecting people who had been infected with an earlier strain of the virus, according to recent studies conducted by researchers at the University of Sao Paulo in collaboration with Oxford University and Imperial College London. It is now spreading in many nations around the world, and a high-profile series of infections in Canada is adding to significant concerns about how it affects young and healthy people. The Vancouver region has recently become a hotspot for the P. 1 variant, and now more than half of the players on the Vancouver Canucks ice hockey team have tested positive for Covid-19. Two more names were added to the team's Covid-19 protocol list on Sunday, bringing the total up to 16, and according to several sources there are a few who are in "rough shape". One Canucks player told ESPN he had heard of teammates receiving IV treatments for severe dehydration. "Fatigue, dehydration – the symptoms are intense," one agent of a Canucks player told the site. "It's knocked a lot of guys out. Some can't even get out of bed." The source said the more infectious P. 1 variant has been found among several of the cases affecting the Canucks. Harvard epidemiologist Dr Eric Liang Feigl-Ding said the Canucks cases are cause for concern given they are young elite athletes in prime physical condition. "More than 50 per cent of its team sickened, many decimated 'very ill'," he tweeted. "Despite strict workplace protocols. Despite big PPE budget. Despite daily testing. The P. 1 variant is just that badass." Dire situation as Brazil deals with its dead Authorities in Brazil have been forced to make the horrendous decision to dig up the bodies buried years ago in graveyards to make room for the mounting dead as the nation crashes through new records for Covid-19 cases and deaths. Gravediggers in the Vila New Cachoeirinha cemetery in the Sao Paulo's northern reaches worked through the night in white hazmat suits to open tombs, bagging decomposed remains for removal to another location. Although relocating remains is standard in cemetery operations, the municipal secretary responsible for funeral services said the operation has taken on a renewed urgency amid an increasingly dire situation in the South American nation. Opening hours have been extended to allow late-night burials to keep up with the constant influx of bodies. Heartbreaking images from other graveyards shows gravediggers working through the night in full protective gear digging rows of graves under floodlights. At least 66,000 people in Brazil died of Covid-19 in March – more than twice as many fatalities as the country's second-deadliest month of the pandemic, July 2020. Brazil was already the second-worst-hit nation by the pandemic after the US, but things have slid even further downhill in the past month. On Wednesday, Brazil's health ministry registered its highest daily Covid-19 death toll for the second day in a row, with the virus killing 3869 people. The situation is so bad that Brazil now currently accounts for about a quarter of Covid-19 daily deaths worldwide. Experts predict it will only get worse amid a painfully slow rollout of vaccines and President Jair Bolsonaro's attacks on efforts to restrict movement. The Brazilian leader was famously an early virus denier – before contracting the illness. Surge in Americas could be 'even larger' than in 2020 As nations across Latin America close borders and impose lockdowns to control the spread of the virus – it is being warned that this latest surge in cases and deaths could be the region's worst yet. In a news briefing this week, Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) director Carissa Etienne said "it is no accident" that a recent spike coincides with the summer vacation season in the southern hemisphere. "Without preventive action, our region could face an upsurge even larger than the last one," she told reporters. "So, let me be as clear as possible. My main guidance for places experiencing surges in transmission can be summarised in two words: 'Stay home."
Let's see how deaths are doing in the perfect example of the no-lockdown paradise envisioned by Jem and other "natural herd immunity" advocates. 'A biological Fukushima': Brazil COVID-19 deaths on track to pass worst of U.S. wave https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-brazil-idUSKBN2BT30P Brazil’s brutal surge in COVID-19 deaths will soon surpass the worst of a record January wave in the United States, scientists forecast, with fatalities climbing for the first time above 4,000 in a day on Tuesday as the outbreak overwhelms hospitals. Brazil’s overall death toll trails only the U.S. outbreak, with nearly 337,000 killed, according to Health Ministry data, compared with more than 555,000 dead in the United States. But with Brazil’s healthcare system at the breaking point, the country could exceed total U.S. deaths, despite having a population two-thirds that of the United States, two experts told Reuters. “It’s a nuclear reactor that has set off a chain reaction and is out of control. It’s a biological Fukushima,” said Miguel Nicolelis, a Brazilian doctor and professor at Duke University, who is closely tracking the virus. On Tuesday, the Health Ministry reported another 4,195 COVID-19 deaths in the past 24 hours, well above the country’s prior single-day record. Brazil has set daily death records every week since late February, as a more contagious local variant and meager social distancing efforts fuel an uncontrolled outbreak. With mass vaccinations curtailing the U.S. outbreak, Brazil has become the epicenter of the pandemic, contributing about one in four deaths per day globally, according to a Reuters analysis. President Jair Bolsonaro has pushed back against mask-wearing and lockdowns that public health experts consider the best way to lessen virus transmission. The country dragged its feet last year as the world raced to secure vaccines, slowing the launch of a national immunization program. Despite the recent surge, Brazilian officials are insistent that the country can soon return to something resembling business as usual. “We think that probably two, three months from now Brazil could be back to business,” Economy Minister Paulo Guedes said during an online event on Tuesday. “Of course, probably economic activity will take a drop but it will be much, much less than the drop we suffered last year ... and much, much shorter.” Bolsonaro has responded to growing political pressure with a dramatic shakeup of a half dozen ministries, putting loyalists in key roles ahead of what may be a tough re-election campaign next year against his political nemesis. While the president has shifted his tone on immunizations, touting vaccines he had recently disdained, the far-right former army captain continues to battle in the courts against state and municipal restrictions on economic activity. With weak measures failing to combat contagion, Brazil’s COVID-19 cases and deaths are accumulating faster than ever. Nicolelis and Christovam Barcellos, a researcher at Brazilian medical institute Fiocruz, are separately forecasting that Brazil could surpass the United States in both overall deaths and the record for average deaths per day. As soon as next week, Brazil may break the record U.S. seven-day average for COVID-19 deaths, according to a model by the influential Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. The U.S. average for daily deaths peaked at 3,285 in January. The IHME forecast does not currently extend beyond July 1, when it projects Brazil could reach 563,000 deaths, compared with 609,000 total U.S. fatalities expected by then.