RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Hospitals in Brazil falter as an extremely contagious coronavirus variant tears through the country, the president insists on unproven treatments and the only attempt to draw up a national plan to contain COVID-19 , just fell short.
Last week, Brazilian governors tried to do something that President Jair Bolsonaro stubbornly rejects: come up with a proposal to help states curb the deadliest COVID-19 outbreak to date. The effort is expected to include a curfew rule, a ban on overcrowded events and the limitation of hours that non-essential services can have.
The final product, which was presented on Wednesday, was a one-page document containing general support for restricting activities, but without any specific measures. Six governors, apparently still cautious about opposing Bolsonaro, refused to sign.
Wellington Dias, Piaui’s government, told The Associated Press that unless the pressure on hospitals is eased, a growing number of patients will have to endure the disease without a hospital bed or any hope of treatment in an intensive care unit.
‘We have reached the border across Brazil; the exceptions are rare, ”said Dias, who heads the governors’ forum. “The chance of dying without help is real.”
Those deaths have already begun. In the richest state in Sao Paulo, Brazil, at least thirty patients died this month while waiting on ICU beds, according to a report published on Wednesday by the news website G1. In the southern state of Santa Catarina, 419 people are waiting for transportation to ICU beds. In the neighboring Rio Grande do Sul, the ICU capacity is at 106%.
Alexandre Zavascki, a doctor in Porto Alegre, capital of Rio Grande do Sul, described a constant arrival of hospital patients struggling to breathe.
“I have a lot of colleagues who sometimes stop crying. This is not medicine we work on regularly. It’s medicine adapted for a war scenario, ” said Zavascki, who oversees the treatment of infectious diseases in a private hospital. ‘We see that a large part of the population refuses to see what is happening and resists the facts. Those people can walk into the hospital and want beds. But there will not be one. ‘
The country, he added, needed ‘stricter measures’ from local authorities.
On the President’s objections, the Supreme Court last year upheld the jurisdiction of cities and states to impose restrictions on activities. Nevertheless, Bolsonaro consistently condemned their movements, saying that the economy should continue and that isolation would cause depression. The measures were relaxed by the end of 2020 as COVID-19 cases and deaths decreased, municipal election campaigns began and the home-bound Brazilians became tired of quarantine.
The most recent surge is driven by the P1 variant, which the Brazilian health minister said last month is three times as transmissible as the original strain. It first became dominant in the Amazon city of Manaus and in January forced the air travel of hundreds of patients to other states.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director of the World Health Organization,’s growing failure to arrest the virus since then is seen not only for Latin American neighbors, but also as a warning to the world. .
“Across the country, aggressive use of social measures, social measures, will be very, very important,” he said. “Without doing things to affect the transmission or suppress the virus, I do not think we in Brazil will be able to have the declining trend.”
Last week’s count of more than 10,000 deaths was the highest in Brazil since the pandemic, and this week’s toll is on track to get even bigger after the country posted nearly 2,300 deaths on Wednesday, and the total of the previous day, which was also a record, blown away.
“Governors, like many of the population, are fed up with all these shortcomings,” said Margareth Dalcolmo, a prominent pulmonologist at the state-run Fiocruz Institute. She added that their proposed treaty is vague and will remain symbolic unless it becomes intrusive and confronts the federal government.
The national secretaries of Brazil’s national health council last week called for the introduction of a national curfew and lockdown in regions approaching the maximum hospital capacity. Bolsonaro went down again.
“I will not determine this,” Bolsonaro said at an event on Monday. “And you can be sure of one thing: my army will not take to the streets to force people to stay at home.”
Restrictions can already be found just outside the presidential palace after Federal District Governor Ibaneis Rocha imposed a curfew and partial lockout.. Rocha warned on Tuesday that he could hold on tighter and only save pharmacies and hospitals if people do not comply with the rules. Currently, 213 people in the district are on the waiting list for an ICU bed.
Bolsonaro told reporters on Monday that the curfew was an insult, inadmissible, and said that even the WTO believes that lock-ins are inadequate because they hurt the poor excessively. While acknowledging “deep negative consequences”, the WHO says that some countries have had no choice but to impose heavy measures to slow the spread, and that governments should take the extra time to test and detect cases. , while caring for patients.
Such nuances were lost at Bolsonaro. His government continues its search for silver bullet solutions that have so far only served false hopes. It seems that any idea should justify consideration, except that of public health experts.
The Bolsonaro government has spent millions on the manufacture and distribution of malaria pills, which has shown no benefit in rigorous studies. Yet Bolsonaro endorsed the drugs. He also supported the treatment with two drugs for the control of parasites, which did not show effectiveness. He again mentions their ability to prevent hospitalizations during a Wednesday event in the presidential palace.
Bolsonaro also sent a committee to Israel this week to review an unproven nasal spray he called a “miraculous product.” Fiocruz’s Dalcolmo, whose younger sister is currently in an ICU, called the trip ‘very pathetic’.
Camila Romano, a researcher at the University of Sao Paulo’s Institute of Tropical Medicine, hopes a test developed by her laboratory to help identify varying variants, including P1 monitor and control its distribution. She also wants to see stricter government measures and citizens do their part.
“Every day is a new surprise, a new variant, a city whose health system is collapsing,” Romano said. “We are now in the worst phase. Whether this will be the worst phase of all, we unfortunately do not know what is yet to come. ”
___ Álvares reported from Brasilia. Associated Press video journalist Tatiana Pollastri contributed from Sao Paulo.