Rachel Humphreys talks to the Guardian’s correspondent in Latin America, Tom Phillips, on the Covid crisis in Brazil. A surge in infections associated with a new and seemingly more contagious variant has overwhelmed hospitals in the state of Amazonas, and many people have not had the most basic supplies. Circumstances were so bleak that oxygen tankers raced across the border from Venezuela, the country that collapsed economically, with its leader, Nicolás Maduro, calling it ‘Jair Bolsonaro’s public health disaster’.
Tom tells Rachel about the way the public reacted to Bolsonaro and his government’s handling of this latest spate of infections. Vaccination began last Sunday, weeks after other Latin American countries such as Chile and Mexico. But Brazil, which has 212 million citizens, has so far secured only 6 million doses of CoronaVac shot in China and 2 million AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine.
Archive: YouTube – Airside TV – Manaus Tour; BBC News; G1; Sky News; KondZilla – Bum Bum Tam Tam (2021); Al Jazeera; Bloomberg; France 24
Photo: Marcio James / AFP / Getty Images
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