Ambulance doctor Sandokan Costa said patients often omit the mention of COVID-19 symptoms, putting him and his colleagues at greater risk. “What has most struck me is people’s belief that the pandemic isn’t real.” RenataBritoAP
MANAUS, Brazil — As the white van approached Perfect Love Street, one by one chatting neighbors fell silent, covered their mouths and noses and scattered.
As ambulances zip through Manaus with sirens blaring and backhoes dig rows of new graves, the muggy air in this city by the majestic Amazon River feels thicker than usual with such pervasive denial. Manaus has seen nearly triple the usual number of dead in April and May. He has resisted U.S. and European-style lockdowns to contain the virus’ spread, saying such measures aren’t worth the economic wreckage. He fired his first Health Minister for supporting quarantines, accepted the resignation of a second one after less than a month on the job, and said that the interim minister, an army general with no background in health or medicine, will remain in charge of the pandemic response “for a long time.
The new sickness made its way to Manaus in March, in the middle of the rainy season. At least that’s when health officials first became aware of it in the capital of Amazonas state, which is at once remote and international. One precarious road connects the city to the rest of Brazil, and other municipalities are hours away by boat. But tropical fauna and flora normally draw tourist cruises up the Amazon, and business people fly in from around the world, to visit its free trade zone.
Das Graças was among those who had hoped that her father could have a proper sendoff. But it wasn’t to be. The white-suited men informed her that his coffin would be sealed, a precaution taken now regardless of cause of death. He would be sent to the public cemetery’s refrigerated container to await burial.
Costa fell ill with the virus in late March but has worked non-stop since recovering and is astonished to see his fellow citizens on the streets acting as though nothing is going on. There is a stigma attached to the new disease, he said. “Coronavirus has become something pejorative.”Rather than take precautions, Bolsonaro has supported the use of chloroquine, the predecessor of an anti-malaria drug that U.S.
It was only on March 23, when his state had 32 cases including local transmissions that he ordered the suspension of non-essential services. But the restrictions were never imposed on the city’s industrial zone.In late-April the governor announced plans to progressively reopen commerce, but backed down as the death toll continued to climb. This month, he told the Associated Press in an interview that the unusual surge in deaths can only be explained by the outbreak.
Poor and crowded neighborhoods have been particularly affected. Unable to afford private consultations and fearing the chaos of the public health system, many only sought medical help when it was too late. Others preferred to die at home rather than alone at a hospital. The virus has, in the meantime, spread upriver from Manaus, creeping into remote towns and indigenous territories to infect indigenous tribes. The sparsely populated but vast rainforest region is completely unprepared to cope. Some towns can’t get oxygen tanks refilled or don’t have breathing machines, forcing nurses to manually pump air into lungs. When they do have machines, power cuts frequently shut them down.
A public health researcher who until last year lead the HIV/AIDS department at the Health Ministry, Benzaken already has lost four colleagues in the pandemic.
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