Brazilian Hospitals “Near Collapse” As COVID Surges

May 18, 2020 Coronavirus, Government

The mayor of Brazil’s largest city, São Paulo, has said its health system could collapse as demand grows for emergency beds to deal with coronavirus cases. Bruno Covas said the city’s public hospitals had reached 90% capacity and could run out of space in two weeks.

He accused those who flouted lockdown rules of playing “Russian roulette” with people’s lives. São Paulo is one of the country’s worst-hit regions, with almost 3,000 deaths so far.

Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has been strongly criticised both at home and abroad for his handling of the country’s escalating coronavirus crisis. The health ministry reported 7,938 new cases in the past 24 hours, taking the total above 241,000. Only the US, Russia and the UK have higher numbers.

“The hospital is now overcrowded.”

Brazil is running out of hospital beds to treat #coronavirus patients. The country now has the world’s 4th-highest number of confirmed #Covid_19 cases #Covid19Brasil pic.twitter.com/nbnMt7adlm

— Bloomberg QuickTake (@QuickTake) May 18, 2020

In Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro state, most hospitals accepting COVID-19 patients have run out of ICU beds. And a hospital that opened two weeks ago to take the overflow is already 90 percent full. https://t.co/SlbcnDTUzg

— The Associated Press (@AP) May 17, 2020