The hospitalization of 254 covid-19 patients in a single day overflowed the city of Manaus on Thursday, brought the health network to the brink of collapse and left several hospitals without oxygen, causing the death of at least two patients.
More dramatic images arrive this Friday from the capital of the Brazilian Amazon that illustrate the desperation of relatives of patients and doctors who try to save their lives.
The Brazilian government carried an emergency oxygen shipment in military planes to the remote city while patients requiring oxygen were evacuated to other states.
The president, Jair Bolsonaro, wanted to ignore the crisis in the face of a shocked country.
“That is terrible.
We have done our part, "he said in an interview this Friday afternoon.
As various state institutions mobilize to prevent a cascade of deaths, and ordinary Brazilians rush to collect donations to buy oxygen, President Bolsonaro added in the interview: "Now I would have to be on the beach drinking beer."
Brazil is in the middle of the most anticipated holidays of the year.
It is the umpteenth gesture that shows his absolute lack of empathy.
Worse still, the far right has sabotaged many of the efforts to contain the epidemic in the second country in the world with the most deaths (207,000) and the third with the most infections (more than eight million) according to official figures.
Brazil intends to start vaccinating next week after the regulatory body says next Sunday whether or not to authorize the two candidate injections.
Among citizens dissatisfied with his management, indignation increases.
Representatives of civil society and the opposition have called on citizens to send a strong message to Bolsonaro tonight with a national pan.
Doctors in the Amazon capital have reduced the oxygen supply per patient to ration it.
The scheduled evacuation of premature babies has been put on hold because there is oxygen for 48 hours.
But the referral center for emergencies and at least one other hospital began to reject new admissions this Friday morning.
Deaths at home have been increasing for days.
The company that supplies oxygen to the city's hospitals has explained that its production is not enough to meet the current demand, which is skyrocketing.
The infections are advancing rapidly in the city where the new strain originated, which has led the United Kingdom to prohibit the entry of travelers from Brazil, the rest of Latin America and Portugal.
Scientists suspect that it is more contagious, but they have not verified for the moment that this spectacular peak of infections in Manaus is responsible for the peak.
The extent of the tragedy and the desperation of the situation are reflected in the fact that the governor of Amazonas, the ally of Bolsonaro Wilson Lima, knocked on the door of Venezuela on Thursday to ask for help despite the dire state of Venezuelan health and that it is governed by Chavismo.
Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza responded via Twitter to say that he had "instructions from Nicolás Maduro" to "immediately make available the necessary oxygen to attend the health contingency."
Manaus has broken its record for burials several times this week since the pandemic began.
It adds almost 4,000 deaths among its more than two million inhabitants and borders on the collapse of the health network for the second time since the first infections.
Already in May, health centers and cemeteries were overwhelmed.
This Friday, when the two million deceased by the coronavirus has been counted, the WHO has called on the world to look at Manaus and take note.
“What is happening in Manaus is an alert for many countries.
Do not let a sense of false security allow you to lower your guard ”, warned the head of emergencies of the multilateral organization, Mike Ryan, in Geneva.
A good part of the citizens of Manaus, as in other places in Brazil, have been ignoring health recommendations for months.
Governor Lima has decreed a curfew from seven in the afternoon to six in the morning.
At the gates of Christmas, the Manaus authorities measures to restrict activities were responded with loud protests applauded by Bolsonarism.
The trail of covid cases in recent months has buried the hypothesis that Manaus could be the first city in the world to have achieved herd immunity.
Brazil, the world's ninth largest economy in 2019, lags further behind in immunization than several Latin American countries and other overcrowded countries like Indonesia.
The Brazilian government is very aware of India, which plans to start giving injections this Saturday and which refuses to immediately deliver two million doses of the AstraZeneca / Oxford compound that Brazil bought.
Bolsaanro is in a hurry because he wants to make sure that the governor of São Paulo, João Doria, who sponsors another vaccine, that of Sinovac, does not steal the long-awaited photo of the first vaccination from the federal government.
The Government has finally decided to incorporate the Chinese vaccine into the national immunization program, which intends to make the first injections on Thursday the 20th as long as the National Health Surveillance Agency gives its approval and the doses are available.
Information about the coronavirus
- Here you can follow the last hour on the evolution of the pandemic
- This is how the coronavirus curve evolves in the world
- Guide to action against the disease
