{"id":9817,"date":"2020-05-10T23:51:33","date_gmt":"2020-05-11T06:51:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=9817"},"modified":"2020-05-11T04:56:57","modified_gmt":"2020-05-11T11:56:57","slug":"post3-75","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=9817","title":{"rendered":"“Brazil\u2019s Pandemic Is Just Beginning”, The Atlantic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Uri Friedman, May 10, 2020<\/p>\n

The United States is clearly ground zero for the coronavirus outbreak at the moment, but the next one may already be emerging 4,500 miles south.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrazil is probably the next epicenter of the pandemic in the world,\u201d Luciano Cesar Azevedo, a physician who has been spending his days and nights treating COVID-19 patients in intensive-care units in S\u00e3o Paulo, the country\u2019s largest city, told me this week. \u201cI think Brazil is going to get close to 100,000 deaths.\u201d On the day we spoke, Azevedo noted that ICU beds in the city\u2019s public health-care system were at 90 percent occupancy. He said Rio de Janeiro, whose health-care system is already seriously strained by the outbreak, could become Brazil\u2019s New York.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n

SHUTTERSTOCK \/ THE ATLANTIC<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Tom Inglesby of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health notes that the country reported 3,700 new daily cases on April 23. Less than two weeks later, on May 6, new daily cases had more than tripled, to 11,896. The developments in Brazil \u201care really concerning,\u201d Inglesby told me.<\/p>\n

The nation of more than 200 million people has so far recorded fewer than 10,000 deaths<\/a> from COVID-19, a small fraction of America\u2019s death toll. But confirmed cases and fatalities are rapidly growing<\/a>, each day leading to dismal new records<\/a> and rendering Brazil the hardest-hit country in Latin America and one of the worst-off in the world. Flu season hasn\u2019t even arrived yet<\/a> (the Southern Hemisphere is heading into winter), and a dengue outbreak in the country may peak<\/a> just as the coronavirus outbreak does. Inadequate testing<\/a> means that Brazil\u2019s official case count, which is already well over 100,000, could actually be as much as 10 times higher, according to Azevedo, who is also a professor of critical care and emergency medicine at the University of S\u00e3o Paulo, which runs a public hospital, and the head of education at Hospital S\u00edrio-Liban\u00eas, a private facility. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, one of the world\u2019s leading<\/a> coronavirus deniers<\/a>, is pushing to ease social-distancing restrictions and reopen the economy, which could accelerate the spread of the virus. \u201cWe are only at the beginning,\u201d Azevedo said.<\/p>\n

\n