Brazil reports record death toll from COVID-19 as hospitals overwhelmed
Marcio Moraes prays outside the window of an improvised ICU where his 25-year-old brother was hospitalized for COVID-19 in Brasilia, Brazil, March 8, 2021.
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On Tuesday, Brazil registered a record daily number of deaths due to COVID-19 and hospitals are buckling under the strain of widespread infections from the coronavirus. The country’s Health Ministry reported 1,972 fatalities and more than 70,000 new COVID-19 cases.
The South American country still falls second only to the United States in number of deaths globally and health officials have raised concerns about the slow rollout of vaccines and the potential threat of unchecked virus migration on not just neighboring countries, but around the world. “If Brazil is not serious, then it will continue to affect all of the neighborhood there — and beyond,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization.
The strain on Brazil’s health system is immense. One Brazilian health care provider dies of the coronavirus every 19 hours, according to the latest Brazilian government statistics. Dr. Miguel Nicolelis, in São Paulo, tells The World’s Marco Werman (?) that his colleagues are under such immense stress that many feel as though they’ve spent the past year in a war zone.
“If I can be totally frank … I got a shivering to my body,” Nicolelis said. “You know, it is probably the worst loss of health professionals in the world. It probably is the worst in the world.”
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