Brazil has yet again been hard-hit by the new coronavirus strain. With oxygen tanks emptying in minutes and soaring COVID-19 cases, things have gotten all the more complicated.?
According to reports, people have been flocking to local distributors for refilling their oxygen tanks. Pictures show?family members queued up outside the Carboxi oxygen plant during torrential downpours and sweltering humidity on Tuesday.
According to a CNN report, the Brazilian government has come under sharp criticism over its handling of the crisis.?
Last week, Supreme Court judge Ricardo Lewandowski ordered the government to present a response plan to solve the oxygen shortage, citing the Jair Bolsonaro administration's "omissive behavior" in addressing the emergency.??
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'If you want to offer us oxygen, we will receive it without a problem,' Bolsonaro said Monday. 'But he could give emergency aid to his people too, right? The minimum wage there doesn't buy half a kilo of rice.'
Brazilian Vice-President Hamilton Mour?o said on Twitter that the country¡¯s air force had taken more than eight tons of hospital items including oxygen cylinders, beds and tents to Manaus.
Federal prosecutors in the city, however, asked a local judge to put pressure on President Jair Bolsonaro¡¯s administration to step up its support. The prosecutors said later in the day that the main air force plane in the region for oxygen supply transportation ¡°needs repair, which brought a halt to the emergency influx.¡± Neither air force nor the federal health ministry answered a request for comment from?The Associated Press.
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Amazonas' state government spokesperson told CNN they would provide "clarifications" to the Prosecutor General's office, and added that the state continues to work to mitigate the crisis, including, "the transport of oxygen from other states to Manaus, the installation of mini oxygen in hospitals, the transfer of patients for assistance in other states and the requisition of all production from local oxygen suppliers."??
Brazil has recorded 210,000 deaths from coronavirus, the second-highest toll after the United States.
The city is receiving an average of four Brazilian air force flights per day to bolster oxygen stocks, along with one shipment per day from the city of Belem near the mouth of the Amazon river,?Mail Online reports.?
Amazonas Governor Wilson Lima led a ceremony that kicked off the vaccination campaign on Monday night.
According to an AP report, a research paper indicated that the new strain of the coronavirus had been circulating in Manaus as of mid-December.?
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The paper said that raised concerns about greater transmissibility or potential for reinfection, although such possibilities remain unproven.
A positive COVID-19 test doesn¡¯t reveal which variant of the virus the patient has, but it is likely that the new strain has been partially responsible for driving Manaus¡¯ second wave, according to Pedro Hallal, an epidemiologist.
But despite the oxygen shortage, the first doses of the covid vaccine have started to be administered in the state which is home to many of the country's indigenous people.??
All Inputs AP