Covid outbreak: Brazilian states impose restrictions

Various state governors or mayors of Brazil have announced restrictions on activities or movements in order to avoid the collapse of health structures with the current outbreak of cases of contamination by the coronavirus.

Brazil crossed the threshold of 250,000 deaths in exactly one year from the pandemic on Thursday, the current second wave of which is worse than the first in some regions.

On Friday, the Covid-19 had a total of 252,835 dead, according to the Ministry of Health.

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The most populous - 46 million people - and wealthiest Sao Paulo state has ordered bars and restaurants that had recently been allowed to reopen to close at 8 p.m.

Various towns in the interior have also imposed a curfew due to the near saturation of intensive care units.

The state of Parana (south) has announced the closure of non-essential businesses and declared a curfew, starting this Friday, from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Only supermarkets, pharmacies and petrol stations will remain open mainly.

The southern state of Rio Grande do Sul has also introduced a curfew, from next Monday.

In the capital Brasilia, bars, restaurants and non-essential shops will close between 8:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m., also from Monday.

In the state of Bahia (northeast), non-essential businesses will remain closed from this Friday to March 1.

With an average of more than 1,000 deaths per day for the past month, Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello said on Thursday that Brazil was going through

which he attributed to the appearance of variants of the Covid-19.

"The problem is not the new variants, it is that there is no device to control the pandemic,"

epidemiologist José Urbáez told AFP, who criticizes the fact that these measures are mainly nocturnal.

The epidemic, according to the director of the Butantan Institute, Dimas Covas, is progressing much faster than vaccination, which has only allowed barely 3% of the 212 million Brazilians to receive a dose of vaccine since the 17th. January.

President Jair Bolsonaro, who has continued to relativize the pandemic, appeared again this Friday taking a walkabout, without a mask, in Ceara, in northeastern Brazil.

He had said the day before that wearing a mask could cause side effects.