SAO PAULO (AP) – Dozens of COVID-19 patients in the largest city in the Amazon rainforest will leave the state when the local health system collapses, authorities announced on Thursday as declining stocks of oxygen tanks meant that some people began to die breathlessly at home.
Doctors in Manaus, a city of 2 million people, chose which patients to treat and at least one of the city’s cemeteries asked the bad guys to line up to enter and bury their dead. Overcrowded hospital patients waited desperately all day when oxygen cylinders arrived to save some, but arrived too late for others.
The strains prompted the Amazon state government to say it would transport 235 oxygen-dependent patients who are not in intensive care units to five other states and the federal capital, Brasilia.
“I want to thank those governors who shake our hand in a human gesture,” Amazon Gov. Wilson Lima said at a news conference Thursday.
“Everyone looks at us when there’s a problem like the Earth’s lungs,” he said, alluding to a common description of the Amazon. “It simply came to our notice then. Our people need that oxygen. “
Many other governors and mayors from other parts of the country later offered help amid a flood of videos on social media in which bewildered relatives of COVID-19 patients in Manaus asked followers to buy them oxygen.
Brazilian Vice President Hamilton Mourão said on Twitter that the country’s air force had brought to Manaus more than eight tons of hospital items, including oxygen cylinders, beds and tents.
The city’s federal prosecutors, however, asked a local judge to pressure the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro to step up their support. Prosecutors later said on the same day that the region’s main air force plane for transporting oxygen supply “needs repair, which stopped the emergency influx.”
Neither the Air Force nor the Federal Ministry of Health responded to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
The U.S. embassy in Brasilia confirmed that it had received a request from local authorities to support the initiative, without providing details.
Recently, Manaus authorities called on the federal government to step up its decrease in the oxygen needed to maintain the breathing of COVID-19 patients. According to official data, the 14-day death toll in the city is nearing the first wave of last year’s coronavirus pandemic.
At this first peak, Manaus consumed a maximum of 30,000 cubic meters of oxygen per day and now the need has doubled to 70,000 cubic meters, according to White Martins, the multinational that supplies oxygen to Manaus Public Hospitals. At his press conference, the governor blamed White Martins for the lack of supply.
“Due to the strong impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, oxygen consumption in the city has increased exponentially in recent days compared to a volume that was already extremely high,” White Martins said in an emailed statement. and AP. “Demand is much higher than anything predictable and … it continues to grow significantly.”
The company added that the remote location of Manaus presents a difficult logistics, which requires transporting additional stocks by ship and plane. He also said he is considering bringing supplies from neighboring Venezuela to alleviate the difficulties in Manaus.
The governor also enacted more health restrictions, including suspending public transportation and establishing a curfew between 7 p.m. and 6 p.m.
The new measures challenged protesters carrying Brazilian flags on the streets on Thursday morning. Lima, once seen as an ally of Bolsonaro, has faced criticism from supporters of the Conservative president for imposing new restrictions aimed at curbing the virus’s recent rise.
Bolsonaro has downplayed the risks of the disease, saying the economic consequences of the pandemic will kill more than the virus. His son Eduardo, a lawmaker who heads Brazil’s lower house international relations committee, was one of many conservatives who demanded his supporters in December to defy social distancing and disobey house arrest orders.
The Parc de les Tribus, a community of more than 2,500 indigenous people on the outskirts of Manaus, spent more than two months without any residents showing symptoms of COVID-19. Last week, 29 people tested positive, said Vanda Ortega, a community volunteer nurse. Two went to urgent care units, but no one has yet required hospitalization.
“We’re really very worried,” said Ortega, who belongs to the Witoto ethnic group. “It’s chaos here in Manaus. There is no oxygen for anyone.
The increase in cases follows two months of more frequent meetings, first during the November local elections with large rallies and long queues of voters, followed by year-end parties.
The city of Manaus declared a state of emergency on 5 January. The decree allows the municipal government to temporarily hire staff, services and equipment without public tenders. A separate decree suspends the authorization of events and revokes those already granted, while a third establishes teleworking for non-essential municipal employees until March.
A document released this week indicated that a new strain of coronavirus had been circulating in Manaus in mid-December. The paper said concerns were raised about increased transmissibility or reinfection potential, although these possibilities remain unproven.
A positive COVID-19 test does not reveal which variant of the virus the patient has, but it is likely that the new strain was partially responsible for driving the second wave of Manaus, according to Pedro Hallal, an epidemiologist who coordinates the Federal University program. Pelotas tests, by far the most complete in Brazil.
“If it was circulating in mid-December, it would probably circulate a lot more now,” Hallal said by phone. “Therefore, I think that at least part of the new infections are due to the new strain. We do not have the defined data, but it is very probable ”.
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Associated Press writer Mauricio Savarese reported on this story in Sao Paulo and AP writer David Biller from Rio de Janeiro.