Brazil health service is experiencing a historic collapse as intensive care units in hospitals run out of their capacity. The leading institute of Fiocruz has warned.
COVID units in all but two of Brazil’s 27 states are at or above 80 per cent capacity, Fiocruz said.
In Rio do Sul state, there are no intensive care beds available at all.
The warning came as the country recorded its highest daily death toll yet, 2,841 dying within 24 hours.
The figure develops a significant jump from the last high of 2,286 on the 10th of March.
‘Awfully crucial.’
In a Portuguese statement, Fiocruz said that the situation was awfully crucial in the entire country.
The analysis by our researchers suggests it’s the biggest health service collapse in the history of Brazil.
Health officials in São Paulo have called on the new health minister to consider imposing a new national lockdown. São Paulo is Brazil’s most populous state, which on Tuesday also registered a record daily death toll.
Marcello Queiroga will be officially appointed as the health minister on Wednesday. Mr Marcello would be the fourth minister to hold office since the pandemic began.
He was given the job on Monday by President Jar Bolsonaro, who has faced widespread criticism over his handling of the pandemic.
Moreover, President Bolsonaro has consistently opposed quarantine measures introduced by state governors. Moreover, contending that the collateral damage to the economy would be graver than the virus’s effects.
In talks to the media on Tuesday, Mr Marcello urged Brazilians to wear masks and wash their hands. But stopped short of supporting the lockdown or even the social distancing measures.
The cardiologist told CNN Brasil that while lockdowns were employed in acute situations, they could not be a state policy.
That drew a strong response from João Gabbardo, the head of São Paulo’s COVID emergency bodies.
The Government has also faced criticism for the slow rollout of vaccines. It is currently distributing that the Oxford-AstraZeneca and the Chinese-developed CoronaVac jabs. Also, it has places orders for Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer-BioNTech, and Russia’s Sputnik V vaccines. So far, only about 4.6 per cent of the population have received at least one jab of the vaccine dose.
