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“So many people are dying.

Please help us.

Oxygen! ”Calls the desperate nurse into the cell phone camera.

The clip of the crying woman, which is said to have been recorded this week in the Amazon metropolis of Manaus, was viewed more than three million times on the Instagram social network within a few hours.

And should document how dramatic the corona situation is in the Brazilian metropolis.

The short video moves Brazilians like it has not done since the outbreak of the pandemic.

The nurse's Instagram video shows how oxygen bottles are brought to a hospital

Source: Screenshot: Instagram / midianinja

A few weeks ago scientists were still discussing whether the metropolis of Manaus had already achieved herd immunity.

The city with its 2.2 million inhabitants is located in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, which is also known as the “green lung” or “lung of the world”.

Initial tests by the University of São Paulo months ago allowed this thesis, but the scientists also warned against jumping to conclusions.

Now the corona pandemic has returned to Manaus with full force.

The supply in the hospitals collapses, the funeral homes can no longer keep up with the burials.

In one day this week alone, 110 people were buried, which is more than twice as many as in days before the pandemic, according to local media.

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During the week there were only 16 free intensive care beds left for the city's residents.

In the interior of the country, the situation is even more dramatic, there are hardly any intensive care units there anyway.

Above all, however, there is a lack of oxygen to ventilate the many Covid 19 patients.

“The situation is very difficult and much worse than with the first wave.

The people are desperate.

Anyone who has the financial means goes to São Paulo to look for medical help there, ”says pulmonologist Efrem de Aguiar Maranhão in a telephone conversation with WELT.

In the meantime the situation is so dramatic that nurses have to ventilate the patients mechanically with hand pumps.

"You have to take turns from exhaustion."

According to the TV broadcaster CNN Brasil, the number of infections in Manaus has increased by almost 85 percent within a week.

The hospitals were already overwhelmed in the first wave.

But neither the state of Amazonas nor the federal government in Brasilia have prepared for the second wave predicted by the experts.

The entire burden now rests with the hospitals and their staff, they have to pay for the political failure.

Once again.

Loosened too soon, and then came the mutation

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There are two main reasons for the significant increase in the number of infections in Manaus.

The much too early relaxation of the lockdown in December, demanded and celebrated by right-wing populist President Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters in parliaments, caused crowds to gather over the holidays.

The corresponding tweets, documented by critics of the Bolsonaro government, are now flying around his ears on social networks.

Bolsonaro has always believed that shops, restaurants and retail should stay open so as not to ruin the economy.

The second reason is the occurrence of a virus mutation, which, according to the scientists, is significantly more contagious than the previously known variants and which spread enormously at the time when people were getting back together during the relaxation phase.

This mutation could have been brought to Manaus by a woman who was previously in Japan and England, reports pulmonologist Efrem.

But that has not yet been confirmed.

There is a lack of data to say how widespread the new virus is and what structure it has.

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The government is now trying to save what can be saved and is using military planes to fly the much-needed oxygen into Manaus.

At the same time, patients are being flown out to other cities to make room in the hospitals.

However, this is an ordeal for the affected patients, São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro are just under four hours' flight away.

Oxygen delivery for the Getulio Vargas hospital in Manaus

Source: REUTERS / X03410 / BRUNO KELLY

The catastrophic supply situation now also calls the celebrities on the scene.

Comedy stars and influencers are calling for donations in kind and money on social networks in order to support Manaus with oxygen and medical aids.

For once, comedian Whindersson Nunes reported seriously that he had managed to send 20 bottles of 50 liters of oxygen to Manaus.

Other artists joined the solidarity campaign.

Within a very short time, donations of the equivalent of 50,000 euros were collected.

People could find guilty parties for the current situation in any instance, commented popular journalist William Waack on CNN.

The administration failed both at the federal, regional and local level.

It is absolutely incomprehensible that indispensable aids such as oxygen are missing.