Brazil’s second most populous city, Rio de Janeiro, recorded 36,437 deaths in March – 16% more than the 32,060 new births in the month, according to the National Civil Registry. It wasn’t the only one; At least 10 other Brazilian cities with a population of over half a million people also recorded more deaths than births last month.
Cities across the country have been hit hard by a recent surge in Covid-19 cases and deaths, fueled in part by new variants believed to be extra contagious, and by some Brazilians’ disdain for precautions in the area from social distance. The grim ratio of deaths to births is another lens on a national crisis that federal and local officials have been largely unable to control more than a year after the pandemic.
According to statistics from Johns Hopkins University, 77,515 people in Brazil have died as a result of Covid-19 in the last month and more than 2 million new cases have been identified. According to data from public health secretaries, all 27 states and Brazil’s federal district currently see an occupancy rate of 80% or more in intensive care units.
Vaccine roll-out in Brazil has been slow and has been plagued from the outset by internal political bickering and difficulties in obtaining vaccine doses. According to the Brazilian Ministry of Health, only 6.3 million people – about 3% of the population – have been fully vaccinated. The same ministry statement said that 21.1 million people have received at least one dose of the vaccine, but at least 1.5 million of them are behind schedule for their second injection.
Both the Coronavac and AstraZeneca vaccines, on which the country depends, require two doses. The Ministry of Health has not provided any reasons why some Brazilians have not received their second dose. However, local media has raised public confusion or misconceptions about the importance of the second dose and the difficulties faced by low-income Brazilians in accessing vaccination centers.
As long as the coronavirus is circulating uncontrollably, new mutations can emerge, experts say. Existing variants of the corona virus in the country are already sounding the alarm; The P.1 variant, first identified in Brazil, is causing a rise in cases in neighboring countries and prompted France this week to suspend flights to and from the country.
Bombastic President Jair Bolsonaro has embraced vaccines and recently approached Russia about a possible deal 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 downplayed the danger posed by Covid-19 – which he once called a “minor flu” – and insists that the country’s economic health should take precedence over lockdown measures.
In public statements last week, Bolsonaro pledged never to accept a national lockdown strategy to contain the coronavirus – despite calls to do so by the United Nations and respected Brazilian medical research center Fiocruz. He seemed unimpressed by the country’s sobering death toll and rising cases, which he shrugged off as ‘spilled milk’ at an April 7 event in the southern Brazilian city of Foz do Iguacu.
We are not going to cry over spilled milk. We are still living through 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 happens in Brazil, “Bolsonaro said.” In which country in the world have there been no deaths? Unfortunately, people are dying everywhere. “
