Brazil’s Covid-19 resurgence is pushing hospitals to overflowing

She never made it off the official, government-run list for transfer. “No vacancy appeared at the time she needed it and she ended up dying on Saturday,” said Rivitti. “We did the funeral on Sunday.”

The ferocious new wave of the coronavirus that claimed Firmino’s life is inundating intensive care beds in São Paulo and across the country.

As of Sunday, 21 Brazilian states and the Federal District had an ICU occupancy rate of over 80%. Of those, 14 were on the verge of collapsing with an occupation above 90%.

In the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, ICUs are so overloaded that the largest public hospital treating Covid-19 cases in state capital Porto Alegre said Sunday it was forced to close its doors to new patients.

“The hospital’s ICU Covid ward already serves at 132% occupancy,” hospital management at Porto Alegre Hospital das Clinicas said in a statement.

With packed wards comes surging demand for oxygen and other basic necessities. To the north, Rondonia state is at 97.6% ICU occupancy and the Attorney General’s Office has warned that local oxygen supplies could run out in just two weeks.

Brazilian Health Minister Pazuello, himself currently under investigation for his handling of the Manaus crisis, recently estimated that 22 to 25 million doses would be available in March — a sharp drop from earlier predictions that up to 46 million vaccine doses would be available this month.

The federal government is negotiating new vaccine deals, including a purchase order for the Russian-made Sputnik V. But shortages persist for now. In the coastal city of Rio de Janeiro, officials have already been forced to suspend administration of first doses. The campaign will restart once more vaccines become available through Brazil’s health ministry, Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes said.

With the daily death toll in the thousands, every hour that passes means lives lost.

In one grim five-day stretch this month, a dozen Covid-19 patients died at Dr. Akira Tada Hospital, according to hospital officials. All were on a waitlist to be transferred to an ICU.

Dr. Maria Dolores da Silva, an emergency medicine physician at the hospital, has never seen anything like it. A 42-year veteran of Brazil’s public health system, she doesn’t usually break down talking about her work, but in an interview with CNN, she bowed her head and cried, thinking about the loss.

“Psychologically, it affects us,” said Dr. da Silva. “As much as we want to be strong, the feelings come to the surface because of so much suffering that we see.”

A local court recently stepped in, ordering that at least 17 ICU beds be made available those to waiting to be transferred, pointing to the State of São Paulo’s public statistics, which claim that roughly 10% of the region’s ICU beds are still available. The state faces a $6,000 penalty for each day it does not provide beds to those patients.

But dozens more Dr. Akira Tada patients continue to wait to be moved for treatment. On Sunday morning, a 13th waiting patient died.

As of Sunday night, none of the remaining patients had been transferred.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct Dineia Martins Firmino’s age. She is 74. A previous version of the story also misspelled Pamela Rivitti’s surname.