Brazil coronavirus outbreak: Manaus on verge of catastrophe

The coronavirus outbreak in Brazil is worsening, with one city’s healthcare system on the verge of collapse. WARNING: Graphic.

WARNING: Graphic.

There have been mass burials in Brazil after the coronavirus outbreak worsened, with deaths increasing three-fold in one region.

The virus was first detected in Brazil on February 25 this year. Since then it has spread rapidly, with 45,757 cases confirmed and 2906 deaths.

The situation is becoming dire in Manaus, the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Amazonas.

Mass graves are dug in Manaus. Picture: Twitter/Alfons Lopez Tena

The graphic photo reveals the disastrous scale of the outbreak. Picture: Twitter/Alfons Lopez Tena

Grainy footage posted on Twitter shows the digging of mass graves as the local health system is overwhelmed.

The city has a population of about two million and is handling more than 100 burials a day. That’s about three times the normal average.

Official figures in Manaus show 2270 confirmed cases and 193 deaths. But activities at the city’s largest cemetery provide evidence that the real numbers are much greater, Laprensalatina reports.

The government has now set up refrigerated storage units to deal with the dead.

They were recently organised after images were made public showing the inside of a hospital where COVID-19 patients were being attended to just a few feet from the corpses.

“It’s a regrettable scene,” Mayor Arthur Virgilio Neto said.

He also warned that the capital of Amazonas was on the verge of a “public calamity”.

The public health system is already in a state of collapse, according to the city mayor.

Aerial picture showing a burial taking place at an area where new graves have been dug. Picture: AFP

The city’s hospitals are under severe strain, with patients also brought in from surrounding areas.

It’s a distressing scenario,” Fernando Merloto, a public prosecutor with the Federal Public Ministry in Amazonas state, told EFE.

After more than a week suffering a cough and fever — potential signs of COVID-19 — Maria do Espírito Santo went to a hospital in Manaus.

There were no beds available, just a plastic chair, so her family took her home. The next day they brought her to an urgent care unit, where she was admitted and put on a gurney, said Isabelle Noronha, a 32-year-old relative, who waited outside for hours along with other patients’ anxious loved ones milling about in the darkness.

By then, the 67-year-old woman was in serious condition and waiting for an intensive-care unit bed to free up.

After 11 hours, an ambulance transferred her late Friday to a hospital, but she was put in its infirmary rather than its ICU.

On Sunday, she remained in serious condition, breathing with the help of oxygen through a tube. She has been tested for COVID-19 and is awaiting the results.

Another patient’s family member said there was only one ventilator and the X-ray machine didn’t work. Relatives were also forced to buy the medicines they needed themselves because the medical centre had run out of them.

– with AP