Brazilians die waiting for a bed ICU 3:15
São Paulo (CNN) -
It was only 10 days since Graciane da Silva, 28, fell ill until the moment she died.
She was alone when she died in a hospital in Rio de Janeiro;
her mother, Maria da Penha da Silva Siqueira, thinks about it often.
"It never occurred to us what would happen to her," da Silva Siqueira said.
'It was too fast.
This virus won't let us say goodbye.
ANALYSIS |
No vaccines, no leadership, no end in sight.
This is how Brazil became a global threat
Da Silva, who left behind a 4-year-old son, died of covid-19 in June of last year.
At the time, his was a slightly more unusual death.
During the first phase of Brazil's battle against the coronavirus, it was the elderly who made up the majority of those who fell ill and died from covid-19.
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But since the new year, Brazil has so far fallen into the worst days of this pandemic.
The daily death and case figures have broken all previous records.
And amid that rebound, a troubling pattern has emerged: More young people appear to be getting seriously ill and dying from COVID-19, doctors told CNN.
The question is why: Does a new variant infect more young people and make them sicker?
Are young people behaving in a way that makes them more likely to get infected?
Could it be a combination of both?
Doctors: Our patients are getting younger and younger
Across the country, intensive care physicians keep saying the same thing: In this latest wave, their patients are younger than ever.
"We have otherwise healthy patients who are between 30 and 50 years old and that is the profile of most patients," said Dr. Pedro Archer, a 33-year-old intensive care physician at a public hospital in Rio de Janeiro.
"That is the great differentiator in this latest wave."
CNN has spoken with nearly a dozen intensive care doctors and nurses since mid-January, at various hospitals in various Brazilian states.
Each said their intensive care unit (ICU) beds are younger than ever.
"The number of serious infections is much higher than in the first wave," said intensive care doctor Luan Matos de Menezes in January, speaking to CNN near a public hospital in the Amazonian city of Manaus.
"You can see that their conditions are much more critical."
The Brazilian Ministry of Health publishes national statistics on the ages of Covid-19 victims.
An AFP analysis of that ministry's data found that people ages 30 to 59 accounted for about 27% of COVID-19 deaths in the past three months, a 7% increase over pre-December figures. .
The AFP also found that the proportion of deaths of people aged 60 and over fell by 7% in the same period.
CNN has not independently verified the analysis.
Intubation drugs run out in Brazil, and one city could be forced to remove patients from ventilators
Health officials from the state of São Paulo, Brazil's most populous state, said earlier this month that anecdotal testimony from doctors across the country about the severity of cases in younger people is supported by their data.
Officials said 60% of younger COVID-19 patients needed ICU beds, a higher number than before during the pandemic.
For doctors, watching younger patients die is especially brutal.
"The death of a 30-year-old is very, very painful," said Dr. María Dolores da Silva, a 42-year veteran of intensive care medicine in São Paulo.
"They have their whole lives ahead of them and the covid takes them away."
Whose fault is it?
The increase in both cases and deaths in the youngest people has coincided with the rebound of at least one variant of covid-19 in Brazil.
The so-called P.1 variant, which scientists say originated in Brazil, is widely accepted as being more easily transmissible - up to 2.2 times, according to a recent study.
Police officers ask bathers to leave in Macae, just 179 km from the city of Rio de Janeiro, where the beaches are closed to stop the spread of covid-19, on March 20, 2021 in Macae, Brazil.
(Photo by Buda Mendes / Getty Images)
According to a March 4 study in eight Brazilian states conducted by the national health research institute Fiocruz, more than half of all COVID-19 cases in six states were "associated with worrisome variants," including P.1, as well as variants identified for the first time in the United Kingdom and South Africa.
After first appearing late last year, several doctors speculated that the P.1 variant has something to do with demographic change among patients.
But it is too early to know exactly what role this variant plays.
"It is possible that these new variants are more lethal, but we do not have scientific data to confirm this," said Jesem Orellana, a Brazilian epidemiologist.
"But what we do know is that the P.1 variant is more transmissible and that plays an important role in this second wave."
Experts also point to an increase in the festivities around the new year and Carnival celebrations in the first part of the year.
Younger people who participate in parties may have just been more exposed lately.
Videos of illegal gatherings are very easy to find online, and authorities in cities across the country impose fines and close parties every weekend.
Bolsonaro asks for tranquility and they respond with a cacerolazo 1:24
"You have a much more transmissible virus circulating," said Brazilian microbiologist Natalia Pasternak.
“It is going to infect more people, including more young people.
[The increase] may simply be an epidemiological effect of having more people infected at the same time.
And while Brazil's vaccination program has been plagued with delays, it is making slow progress with older adults as its priority.
The more older people get vaccinated, experts say, the more cases and deaths will be noticed among the young.
It is an effect that Maria da Penha da Silva Siqueira feels acutely almost every day.
It's been nine months since she lost her daughter too young, but sometimes, she says, it feels like yesterday.
«When my grandson, his son, sees the stars, he says that she is there.
This week, she told my sister that she wanted to visit heaven so she could see her mother.
Marcia Reverdosa and Eduardo Duwe contributed to this report.
Pandemic