Brazil’s healthcare system has been plunged into the most severe crisis in its history, with doctors overwhelmed and patients dying while they wait for intensive care beds as the country’s Covid-sceptic president, Jair Bolsonaro, continued to spurn calls for a lockdown that would save lives.
As the daily number of infections and deaths soared to new heights this week, researchers from Brazil’s leading healthcare institute, Fiocruz, said South America’s biggest country faced an unparalleled “catastrophe”.
Covid intensive care units in virtually all of Brazil’s 26 states and the federal district containing the capital, Brasília, are now either at, or perilously close to capacity, the institute said, warning: “The situation is absolutely critical.”
Brazil’s far-right leader and his allies continue to downplay an outbreak that has killed more than 287,000 people, the second highest number on Earth, and, partly as a result of the more contagious P1 variant, is now accelerating into by far its most deadly phase.
