The Amazonian city that hatched the Brazil variant has been crushed by it

[Judi Lynn]

The Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery, where covid-19 victims are buried, in Manaus, Brazil.
(Marcio James/AFP/Getty Images)

By
Terrence McCoy and
Heloísa Traiano
Jan. 27, 2021 at 12:18 p.m. CST

Another surge was coming. This time, Uildéia Galvão thought they were prepared.
Galvão, the lead physician in the coronavirus ward at a public hospital in the Brazilian city of Manaus, had been haunted by the wave that crashed last spring. In less than 10 days, it ruptured the city’s bewildered medical system. Sick patients were turned away. The dead were piled into mass graves.

So Galvão’s hospital organized contingency plans. Additional beds were reserved, and a detailed schedule for opening them was created.

But the new surge, when it came, was different. The virus had mutated, with a suite of alterations that probably made it more transmissible — and perhaps more lethal. Manaus was hit by what scientists call the P.1 variant. This time, it didn’t take 10 days to overwhelm Galvão’s hospital. It took 24 hours.

Even in a city as traumatized as Manaus, the horror has been unlike anything doctors have seen. The oxygen quickly ran out. Dozens of hospital patients have died of asphyxiation. Scores more, unable to get care, have died at home. Every half-hour, one doctor said, a funeral procession rumbled toward the cemetery.

“We had a plan,” Galvão said. “We increased the availability of beds. But even with that, there was strangulation.”

More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/01/27/coronavirus-brazil-variant-manaus/

[Ferrets are Cool]

1. Hatched seems a strange word to use

Having said that, this is scary as hell.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. This extremely disturbing...

The parallels between Brazil and USA are so similar.

Word seems to be getting out, tho. I'm seeing many more people wearing masks in stores now, in my red state area.