Hospitals in São Paulo near collapse, mayor warns

The mayor of São Paulo, Brazil, is warning that hospitals are at 90 percent capacity in the city and could be fully overwhelmed over the next two weeks.

Bruno Covas said too many residents are ignoring social-distancing rules in the city and pleaded with constituents to adhere to them.

“It is hard to believe that some prefer the population to be subjected to Russian roulette. Indifference in the face of death is unseemly,” Covas said, according to the BBC.

São Paulo, the country’s largest city, has been hit hard by the pandemic, with nearly 3,000 deaths. 

The wider São Paulo state imposed a quarantine nearly two months ago, closing schools, public spaces and businesses, but most residents of the city have disregarded the rules. There are no fines or criminal penalties for violating the quarantine, and a rule requiring the wearing of masks has also been largely ignored.

The Amazonas state, meanwhile, had 20,300 confirmed cases of the virus as of Sunday, overwhelming the health care system in the state capital of Manaus and forcing officials to bury the dead in mass graves. Rio de Janeiro, which has the second-highest death toll after São Paulo, has also warned its intensive care beds are being overwhelmed.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has vocally opposed national lockdown measures, telling mayors and governors in a speech in March, “Our lives have to go on.”

“Jobs must be kept. We must get back to normal,” he said at the time, blasting “scorched-earth” social-distancing policies.

Bolsonaro has also insisted, contrary to available data, that he would be unaffected even if he caught the virus “with my history as an athlete,” according to the BBC.

The nation’s health minister, Nelson Teich, resigned his post last week after publicly criticizing Bolsonaro’s decree allowing gyms and beauty parlors to reopen, the British network added.