SAO PAULO.- Brazil registered 4,195 deaths associated with covid-19 in the last 24 hours, a new daily maximum, and accumulated 336,947 deaths since the start of the pandemic just over a year ago, official sources reported Tuesday.
The Ministry of Health reported 86,979 new infections of coronavirus, with which the total balance of infected rose to 13,100,580, at a time when the country faces the worst phase of the pandemic, with the public health system on the verge of collapse.
Brazil is the second country with the most deaths and confirmed cases of the disease, only behind the United States, although it is currently the place on the planet where the most deaths from covid-19, with an average in the last week that exceeds 2,500 daily deaths.
The previous daily maximum of deaths from the coronavirus in the country was on March 31, when it reached 3,869.
The data confirm a worsening of the pandemic in this country of 212 million inhabitants, where the vaccination campaign, which began on January 17, continues at a slow pace, as only 10% of the population has received the first dose .
Sao Paulo, the richest and most developed state in Brazil, with a population of 46 million, similar to that of entire countries such as Argentina or Spain, once again registered a new daily death record on Tuesday, reaching 1,389 in the last 24 hours.
Almost 90% of the intensive care units in the São Paulo region are occupied and in the capital of the same name, given the growth in deaths, local authorities have been forced to authorize night burials and hire school buses to transport the bodies .
The same situation is practically experienced in the other 26 states of the country, where the public network of hospitals is at the limit of its capacity and also deals with the lack of essential drugs for the intubation of the most serious covid-19 patients.
In addition, there is concern about the circulation of variants of the coronavirus considered more infectious, such as the one that emerged in the state of Amazonas (north), known as P.1 and already predominant in several states of the country, such as Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.
Of this new variant, which according to the Ministry of Health is “up to three times” more contagious, cases have been detected in 21 of the 27 Brazilian states, and of the British variant in 13 of them, according to data from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation ( Fiocruz), a leading medical research center in Latin America.
Fiocruz warned this Tuesday in its latest bulletin that the pandemic “may remain at critical levels throughout the month of April,” which would put even more pressure on the nearly collapsed public health system.
“The analysis shows that the Sars-CoV-2 virus and its variants continue to circulate intensely throughout the country,” said the institution.
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