Aerial view of cemetery workers unloading a coffin from a truck at an area where new graves have been dug at the Parque Taruma cemetery, during the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic in Manaus, Amazonas state, Brazil, on April 21, 2020. Picture: MICHAEL DANTAS / AFP
The daily death rate here has shot up from 20 or 30 pre-pandemic to 100 a day in a matter of weeks after the city recorded its first case on March 13. And an already weak health care system has simply collapsed. Amazonas is the fifth-hardest hit in Brazil by the pandemic, with 2,479 cases and 207 reported deaths as of Tuesday. But Manaus, with a population of 1.7 million, has the highest mortality rate of any of Brazil’s 27 state capitals.
Outside the Delphina Rinaldi Abdel Aziz Hospital, Rita Alencar is waiting for someone — anyone — to tell her if she can collect the remains of her grandmother. Local authorities have built a field hospital and the federal government has summoned doctors from around the country to help out in Manaus.
Seeing that he didn't take the breakout seriously, the Brazilian president should be tried for crimes against humanity and mass genocide.