Rio de Janeiro, the second most populous city in Brazil, registered 36,437 deaths in March – 16% more than the 32,060 new births in the month, according to the National Civil Register. It was not alone; at least ten other Brazilian cities with a population of more than half a million people also registered more deaths than births last month.
Cities across the country have been hit hard by a recent increase in Covid-19 cases and deaths, fueled in part by new variants considered extra contagious, as well as by some Brazilians’ disregard for socially removed measures. The grim ratio of deaths to births is another lens for a national crisis that federal and local officials could largely not contain for more than a year in the pandemic.
According to statistics from Johns Hopkins University, 77,515 people have died in Brazil in the past month due to Covid-19, and more than 2 million new cases have been diagnosed. A total of three of the 27 Brazilian states and the federal district currently have 80% or more of the intensive care unit, according to data from state health secretaries.
The vaccination of Brazil is slow and is plagued from the outset by internal political strife and problems with obtaining vaccine doses. Only 6.3 million people – about 3% of the population – are fully vaccinated, according to the Brazilian Ministry of Health. The same statement from the ministry said 21.1 million people had received at least one dose of the vaccine – but that at least 1.5 million of them were behind the plan for their second shot.
Both the country-dependent Coronavac and AstraZeneca vaccines require two doses. The Ministry of Health gave no reasons why some Brazilians did not receive their second doses. However, local media have raised confusion or misconceptions among the public about the importance of the second dose and the problems Brazilians with low incomes are experiencing in accessing vaccination centers.
As long as the coronavirus circulates uncontrollably, new mutations could emerge, experts say. Existing coronavirus variants in the country are already sounding the alarm; the P.1 variant first identified in Brazil is leading to an increase in cases in neighboring countries, and this week prompted France to halt flights to and from the country.
Bombastic President Jair Bolsonaro has accepted vaccines and recently approached Russia for a possible agreement on the Sputnik V vaccine. But critics wish he would apply the same urgency to other fronts in the fight against the coronavirus. The president has repeatedly underestimated the danger of Covid-19 – what he had earlier called a ‘bit of a flu’ – and insisted that the country’s economic health be given priority over lock-in measures.
In public statements last week, Bolsonaro vowed never to adopt a national strategy to close the coronavirus – despite calls to that effect from the United Nations and the respected Brazilian medical research center Fiocruz. He appears unaffected by the country’s sobering death toll and rising numbers, which he shook off as ‘spilled milk’ during a rally on April 7 in the southern Brazilian city of Foz do Iguacu.
“We are not going to cry over spilled milk. We are still experiencing a pandemic, which is partly used politically not to defeat the virus, but to try to overthrow the president. We are all responsible for what is happening in Brazil,” he said. Bolsonaro said. “What country in the world has not seen deaths? Unfortunately, people are dying everywhere. “
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