I'm sorry to report that Brazil, despite its generally good vaccination system, is again making international headlines for the wrong reasons.
The second article now has a link to a Spanish translation, but not (yet) a Portuguese one, sorry.
Carioca, I hope you're staying as safe as you can. /-:
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Experts warn Brazil facing darkest days of Covid crisis as deaths hit highest level
Intensive care units in 17 of the country’s 26 states were near capacity, while six states and the capital had run out of ICU beds. ...
Health experts and lawmakers have warned Brazil is steaming into the darkest days of its coronavirus catastrophe, as fatalities soared to new heights and one prominent politician compared the crisis to an atomic bomb. ...
“We are living through one of the worst moments in our history,” said Tasso Jereissati, an influential centre-right politician who is among a group of senators demanding a congressional investigation into President Jair Bolsonaro’s globally condemned handling of the pandemic.
Renato Casagrande, the leftwing governor of Espírito Santo state, told the news website UOL he believed Bolsonaro’s irresponsible behaviour had cost Brazilian lives.
“We’ve lost the war … It’s as if an atomic bomb has landed on Brazil,” Casagrande said, pointing to Brazil’s soaring death toll which, at more than 255,000 people, is the world’s second highest after the US. ...
So far just 3.8% of Brazil’s population has been vaccinated with state capitals such as Rio, Salvador, Cuiabá, Porto Alegre and Florianópolis among the cities forced to temporarily suspend immunisation for lack of shots.
Calls for the impeachment of a man critics call “Bozo” can be seen graffitied on to walls across major cities while propaganda hoardings promoting the far-right populist have been vandalised with red paint. Both left- and rightwing detractors have taken to the streets in protest in recent weeks.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/01...
Brazil Is Brilliant at Vaccinations. So What Went Wrong This Time?
It’s not hard to work out who to blame for the country’s disastrous vaccine rollout. ...
When it comes to Covid-19 vaccination programs, there are some countries that have exceeded expectations and others that have fallen surprisingly short. And then there is Brazil.
Vaccinating over 210 million people may sound daunting, but for Brazil it really shouldn’t be. With one of the largest universal, free-of-charge public health systems in the world, the country has a distinguished track record of vaccinations and disease control. The National Immunization Program, founded in 1973, helped to eradicate polio and rubella in the country and currently offers more than 20 vaccines free in every municipality.
Along with the infrastructure to distribute vaccines, there’s also the expertise to do so: In 1980, the country vaccinated 17.5 million children against polio in a single day. In 2010, over 89 million dosesof the swine flu vaccine were administered in under four months. And last year, more than 70 million Brazilians received their annual shot against influenza.
We take immunization so seriously here that we even have a mascot for vaccination campaigns, an adorable six-foot smiling white blob named “Zé Gotinha,” Joe Droplet. (This glorious national hero apparently refused to shake hands with President Jair Bolsonaro during an official event in December.)
But despite these advantages, Brazil’s vaccine rollout has been painfully slow, inconsistent and marred by shortages. The nationwide program began on Jan. 18, later than over 50 countries, and at its current rate will take more than four years to complete. Several major cities, such as Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, have already had to stop their campaigns because of problems in supply.
In a country where the pandemic has wrought terrible damage — 250,000 people have died, the second-highest total in the world, after the United States, as cities along the Amazon River like Manaus have been abandoned to their fate — the failure amounts to a disaster.
So what went wrong? Perhaps we should look to Joe Droplet: He seems to know exactly who to blame. ...
The shortage of vaccines at least conceals the fact that the government probably hadn’t secured enough syringes to administer them. Truly, it’s little wonder that the government’s handling of the pandemic was judged by the Lowy Institute, a research institute in Australia,
( https://interactives.lowyinstitute.org/featur... )
to be the worst in the world.
( https://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/miscel... )
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/28/opinion/br...
https://www.nytimes.com/es/2021/03/02/espanol...
