Venezuela Sends Oxygen To Amazonas, Brazil's Largest State Entering The Second Wave Of COVID-19

Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said his country had sent a convoy of trucks carrying emergency oxygen supplies to Brazil's largest state, Amazonas. The area is in the midst of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic which has hit violently.

Quoting Reuters on Monday, January 18, the governor of Bolivar State, Venezuela, delivered Maduro's statement about the six trucks arriving at the Santa Elena de Uairen border on Monday morning. The oxygen will be handed over directly to the Brazilian health authorities.

From there, a truck carrying about 136,000 liters of oxygen - which is enough to fill 14,000 canisters - will take 14 hours to arrive in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas. The health system in Manaus City is experiencing a collapse due to being overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"If there is anything to come first among us Christians today, it is solidarity," said Maduro, a socialist with tense ties with Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

"The Brazilian people should know that we are willing to help Brazil as much as we can, and even more," added Maduro.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro previously said everything was being done to help Amazonas, which was running out of beds and oxygen tanks. His claim comes a day after Brazilian Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello described the health care system in Manaus as collapsing.

"I would say, yes, there was a fall in health services in Manaus. The queues for hospital beds have grown rapidly, today we have about 480 people lining up. And the reality is a lower oxygen supply, not a disruption, but an oxygen supply. the lower one, "he said during a live broadcast on Facebook with Bolsonaro.

Doctors and nurses quoted in local news reports said many patients were dying of shortness of breath. But they couldn't do much because the city hospital was short of oxygen.

The Brazilian Air Force has delivered six cylinders of liquid oxygen, totaling 9,300 kilograms to Manaus on Friday, January 15, 2021 morning. They also flew nine patients and five doctors from Manaus to the city of Teresina, in the state of Piauí.

Speaking in Brasilia, Brazil's Vice President Hamilton Mourão said there was no way to predict a collapse of the public health system. He blamed a new variant of the corona virus circulating in the city.

"You cannot predict what will happen with the tension that happened in Manaus. It is very different from what happened in the first half," said Mourão.