Cases Of COVID-19 Infection Have Increased Dramatically, Capacity For Hospitals In Brazil Is Only 10 Percent

JAKARTA - Hospitals in Brazil's main cities have been overwhelmed and have maximized their capacity over the past week, along with soaring cases of death from COVID-19 this week.

The Fiocruz Biomedical Center said hospital emergency unit beds in 15 of the state's 27 capitals were used up to 90 percent.

In Porto Alegre in southern Brazil, the main referral hospital for COVID-19 stopped accepting new cases, as all its ICU beds were occupied.

"This is a warning. We have reached capacity and people need to realize how bad the situation is", said Claudio Oliveira, director of Conceiçao Hospital.

This is the first time the hospital has turned down a patient since the H1N1 epidemic in 2009. Oliveira told reporters the hospital was closing its doors to avoid a collapse of treatment for COVID-19 patients there.

Meanwhile, in Brazil's capital Brasilia, which imposes a curfew, the ICU wards of public hospitals are 97% full and 99% private, forcing the city to re-establish field hospitals as it did during last year's peak cases. The Health Ministry on Wednesday reported a record. 2,286 deaths from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, due to new infections, up by 79,876.

With more than 270,000 deaths, the number of pandemic deaths in Brazil over the past year has lagged only in the United States. But over the past week, Brazil has averaged more than 1,600 deaths per day, higher than about 1,400 in the United States.

Amid such conditions, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has opposed the lockdown, urging citizens to leave their homes. Meanwhile, governors and mayors are working hard to impose restrictions.

"How long can we last without the responsibility of this lockdown? You shut everything down and you destroy millions of jobs. Lockdown is not the cure", Bolsonaro said in a video address to a business group accompanied by Economy Minister Paulo Guedes.