RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Brazil is currently responsible for a quarter of the daily deaths of COVID-19 in the world, far more than any other nation, and health experts warn that the country is on the verge of an even greater calamity.
The national average of 2,400 deaths in seven days is expected to reach 3,000 in weeks, six experts told the Associated Press. This is almost the worst level seen by the United States, although Brazil has two-thirds of its population. Peak daily deaths may soon reach 4,000; on Friday it was 3,650.
Having glimpsed the chasm, there is growing recognition that stoppages are no longer preventable – not just among experts, but also among many mayors and governors. The restrictions on the activities they implemented last year were timid and consistently sabotaged by President Jair Bolsonaro, who sought to avoid economic ruin. He remains unconvinced of any need for repression, which leaves local leaders looking for a patchwork of measures to prevent the death toll from growing further.
It may be too late, with a more contagious variant devastating Brazil. For the first time, new daily cases reached 100,000 on March 25, with many more untold. Miguel Nicolelis, a professor of neurobiology at Duke University who advised several Brazilian governors and mayors in controlling the pandemic, predicts that the total death toll will reach 500,000 in July and exceed that of the United States by the end of the year.
“We have surpassed levels never imagined for a country with a public health system, a history of efficient immunization campaigns and health professionals unmatched in the world,” said Nicolelis. “The next stage is the collapse of the health care system.”
The system is already doubling, with almost all intensive care units in the states close to or in capacity. Doctor José Antônio Curiati, supervisor at Hospital das Clínicas in São Paulo, the largest hospital complex in Latin America, said his beds are full, but patients are still arriving. The city’s oxygen supply is not guaranteed and the stocks of sedatives needed for intubation in intensive care units will soon run out.
“Four thousand deaths a day seem to be just around the corner,” said Curiati.
On March 17, in the northeast of the state of Piauí, nurse Polyena Silveira cried beside a patient from COVID-19 who died on the floor due to lack of beds in her public hospital. A photo capturing the moment went viral and served as a national alert.
“When he left, I had two minutes to feel sorry before moving on to the next patient,” said Silveira, 33, to the AP. “In eight years as a nurse, I have never felt so much pain as I did that night. I am close to my limit, physically and mentally. “
Brazil’s state institute of science and technology, Fiocruz, on Tuesday called for a 14-day block to reduce transmission by 40%. Natalia Pasternak, a microbiologist who chairs the Question of Science Institute, pointed to a successful local example: the city of Araraquara, in the state of São Paulo, implemented the blockade last month and saw its cases and deaths recede.
Pasternak declined to estimate the growing number of daily deaths in Brazil, but said the trend is for continued growth if nothing is done.
“We need coordinated action and this is probably not going to happen because the federal government has no real interest in pursuing preventive actions,” said Pasternak. “(Mayors and governors) are trying to implement preventive measures, but separately and in their own way. This is not the best approach, but it is better than nothing. “
Minas Gerais, the second most populous state in Brazil, closed non-essential stores. The Holy Spirit will enter a blockade on Sunday. The two largest cities in Brazil, Rio and São Paulo, have imposed extensive restrictions on non-essential activities. State officials have anticipated holidays to create a 10-day rest period, which began Friday.
Restrictive measures, however, are as strong as citizens’ compliance. And Bolsonaro continues to undermine their disposition, painting even partial closure as an attack on the right to earn an honest day’s wages. He attacked local leaders, especially governors, who dare to challenge him.
“We need to open our eyes and understand that this is no joke,” said the mayor of Rio, Eduardo Paes, in a message recorded on the eve of the 10-day strike, noting that no mayor wants to cause unemployment. “People are dying and, if everything continues as it is, nothing is done, only God knows what can happen. Nobody knows the limit of this disease. No one knows how many variants can come up. “
Hundreds of protesters marched along Rio’s Copacabana beach the next morning. Most wore green and yellow shirts that are a trademark of pro-Bolsonaro rallies and many refused to wear masks. They shouted “We want to work!” and directed the vitriol to Paes.
The director of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, asked on Monday that everyone in Brazil would gather a serious answer – “be it the government or the people”.
“It is a joint effort by all the actors that will really reverse this upward trend. In fact, it’s very fast and it’s accelerating really, really fast, ”he said. “We are especially concerned with the (weekly) mortality rate, which has doubled in just one month from 7,000 to 15,000.”
The spread of the virus was fueled by the most contagious P.1 variant that has become a cause for concern beyond Brazil’s borders, not just in South America.. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States’ leading infectious disease specialist, said on Wednesday that his team will meet with Brazilian officials and is “very concerned” about the situation in Brazil.
The United States has seen its death toll plummet since the end of January, amid a massive vaccine launch, and its seven-day average has dropped to less than 1,000. In contrast, the launch of the vaccine in Brazil was tense, at best. The government bet heavily on a single vaccine supplier, AstraZeneca, while for months it rejected offers to buy others. Only after AstraZeneca’s delivery delays hampered the launch, did the Brazilian health ministry start buying – but too late for most deliveries to arrive in the first half of this year.
The nation totally vaccinated less than 2% of its citizens, which experts widely regard as a shame for a country long considered a global model for vaccination programs.
More than 500 of the country’s most influential economists and executives wrote an open letter this week asking for mass vaccination and denouncing the situation. They said that the controversy over the economic impacts of social detachment is a false dilemma and that all levels of government must be prepared to implement the emergency blockade.
Although Brazil’s economy did not contract as much as its regional peers last year, the worsening health crisis casts a shadow over 2021, according to William Jackson, chief economist for emerging markets at Capital Economics. GDP will return to pre-crisis levels at the end of this year, at the very least, marking a rather weak recovery in relation to other emerging markets.
Monica de Bolle, a senior Brazilian researcher at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, is more pessimistic and expects another recession in 2021. How bad things will get in the coming months depends on whether the P.1 variant is already dominant across the country, and it has been proven to cause reinfections or is more serious.
In any case, there is no time to postpone decisive action, she said.
“Overall, it’s a major disaster,” said de Bolle, who did postgraduate studies in immunology and genetics. “It could have been avoided; it was not. Very difficult to fix now. The only real solution is a very severe block with the population really respecting it, which can be difficult to sell. “
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Savarese reported from São Paulo. Contributed by Rio AP reporter Marcelo de Sousa and videojournalist Mario Lobão.