5 ms·

Brazil stares into the abyss as Covid intensive care units fill up everywhere

42 points by bezout 6y ago

raarts 6y ago
Reporting that critical care facilities "were this week 93% full.". This in itself doesn't sound too bad. Most countries scale (expensive) ICU units to be max out in the busiest time of year. The article also mentions 20 ambulances waiting outside a hospital. This also isn't too uncommon, for example happened a few times in London during the last ten years [1]. Problem is things sound much more alarming if you weren't aware of these things and media reports them all the time. [1] https://www.itv.com/news/london/update/2014-12-19/ambulances-spend-more-than-500-hours-waiting-outside-hospitals-in-a-week/ https://www.itv.com/news/london/update/2014-12-19/ambulances...
- ArkanExplorer 6y ago
  The COVID-19 death spike in Sweden was about as deadly as the 2009 Swine Flu outbreak: https://swprs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/sweden-monthly-deaths-1851.jpg https://swprs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/sweden-monthly-... And that's only after a very weak 2018/2019 flu seasons - with one of the lowest death spikes on record. Sweden and many other Western countries also have many more elderly people in 2020 than in 2009: https://www.populationpyramid.net/sweden/2020/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/sweden/2020/ With there being about 20% more 80-84 year old men (prime death age and gender) in 2020 than in 2009. Scientific research comparing Norway and Sweden concludes that basically COVID deaths in Sweden are mortality displacement from 2018/2019 and 2021: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.11.20229708v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.11.20229708v... What's most interesting is why this pandemic has been so heavily politicised and publicised, almost precisely at the timing of the 2020 American election, as the American economy was booming, and with a major aftermath being that many of the world's wealthiest people are now even wealthier due to rampant money printing. Back to Brazil specifically, the major factor here is obesity, which has increased to 19.5% of the population from just 13.7% a decade ago: https://www.statista.com/statistics/781305/share-adult-people-obese-brazil/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/781305/share-adult-peopl... The correct response to COVID should have been to limit sugar (for obesity), and coal and oil burning (for air pollution). COVID is basically a once-a-decade flu variant, but our population is now much fatter, sicker, and older this decade.
  - sharken 6y ago
    One of the restrictions is ironically enough to close down gyms. Am still waiting for a reopening of gyms here in Denmark.
    - eecks 6y ago
      In Ireland we're still locked down to within 5km of our homes, you have to work from home, not allowed to meet socially, no restaurants, shops or gyms, police fines are in force for breaking the rules
      - sharken 6y ago
        Those are some harsh restrictions indeed, given that Ireland seems like a country where you live life to it's fullest, it's an almost unreal level of restrictions. As a comparison Denmark and Ireland have almost identical number of vaccinations and population, so it seems like Ireland is being way too cautious.
  - laurencerowe 6y ago
    > COVID is basically a once-a-decade flu variant, but our population is now much fatter, sicker, and older this decade. This is just untrue. Look at the excess mortality rates across various countries: https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386938 https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386... Without the lockdown (which kept hospitals from overflowing) we would have been looking at similar death rates to those in Ecuador/Bolivia/Peru where 69%/72%/97% more people died than usual last year (vs 19% in the US and 16% in Sweden.) Only 15-20% of people in the US have been infected, and almost half a million excess deaths so far. With the lockdown, weekly excess deaths have been double a bad influenza year in the Netherlands, https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/2/20-2999_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/2/20-2999_article The infection fatality rate for Covid-19 has been estimated at 10x that of seasonal flu. https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201030/covid-19-infection-fatality-ratio-is-about-one-point-15-percent https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201030/covid-19-infection-...
    - 6y ago
- hertzrat 6y ago
  The article also mentions a case of 20+ people waiting for an icu bed to open up, but there being only 4 total at that location
  - raarts 6y ago
    This also happened multiple times the last ten years in for example The Netherlands. To remedy this hospitals move patients around between them. Is not unusual during peak months of the year. If you Google around (and set the time frame to 2001-2019) you find a lot of press articles on overloaded ICU's, temporarily closed wards, patients stops, postponed surgery etc. In most Western countries the health care system has been increasingly strained. And even a slightly worse flu than normal would inevitably have resulted in severe problems. Even without covid-19.
nairboon 6y ago
Hopefully Aviptadil could soon free up some ICU capacity.
tim333 6y ago
Political leadership maybe does make a difference. I see since mid Jan when the US presidency changed the US is down about 5x in cases while Brazil is up 33%. They have now taken over the US's long run as #1 in the world for daily deaths.

42 points by bezout 6y ago

Reporting that critical care facilities "were this week 93% full.". This in itself doesn't sound too bad. Most countries scale (expensive) ICU units to be max out in the busiest time of year. The article also mentions 20 ambulances waiting outside a hospital. This also isn't too uncommon, for example happened a few times in London during the last ten years [1]. Problem is things sound much more alarming if you weren't aware of these things and media reports them all the time. [1] https://www.itv.com/news/london/update/2014-12-19/ambulances-spend-more-than-500-hours-waiting-outside-hospitals-in-a-week/ https://www.itv.com/news/london/update/2014-12-19/ambulances...

ArkanExplorer 6y ago
The COVID-19 death spike in Sweden was about as deadly as the 2009 Swine Flu outbreak: https://swprs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/sweden-monthly-deaths-1851.jpg https://swprs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/sweden-monthly-... And that's only after a very weak 2018/2019 flu seasons - with one of the lowest death spikes on record. Sweden and many other Western countries also have many more elderly people in 2020 than in 2009: https://www.populationpyramid.net/sweden/2020/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/sweden/2020/ With there being about 20% more 80-84 year old men (prime death age and gender) in 2020 than in 2009. Scientific research comparing Norway and Sweden concludes that basically COVID deaths in Sweden are mortality displacement from 2018/2019 and 2021: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.11.20229708v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.11.20229708v... What's most interesting is why this pandemic has been so heavily politicised and publicised, almost precisely at the timing of the 2020 American election, as the American economy was booming, and with a major aftermath being that many of the world's wealthiest people are now even wealthier due to rampant money printing. Back to Brazil specifically, the major factor here is obesity, which has increased to 19.5% of the population from just 13.7% a decade ago: https://www.statista.com/statistics/781305/share-adult-people-obese-brazil/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/781305/share-adult-peopl... The correct response to COVID should have been to limit sugar (for obesity), and coal and oil burning (for air pollution). COVID is basically a once-a-decade flu variant, but our population is now much fatter, sicker, and older this decade.
- sharken 6y ago
  One of the restrictions is ironically enough to close down gyms. Am still waiting for a reopening of gyms here in Denmark.
  - eecks 6y ago
    In Ireland we're still locked down to within 5km of our homes, you have to work from home, not allowed to meet socially, no restaurants, shops or gyms, police fines are in force for breaking the rules
    - sharken 6y ago
      Those are some harsh restrictions indeed, given that Ireland seems like a country where you live life to it's fullest, it's an almost unreal level of restrictions. As a comparison Denmark and Ireland have almost identical number of vaccinations and population, so it seems like Ireland is being way too cautious.
- laurencerowe 6y ago
  > COVID is basically a once-a-decade flu variant, but our population is now much fatter, sicker, and older this decade. This is just untrue. Look at the excess mortality rates across various countries: https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386938 https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386... Without the lockdown (which kept hospitals from overflowing) we would have been looking at similar death rates to those in Ecuador/Bolivia/Peru where 69%/72%/97% more people died than usual last year (vs 19% in the US and 16% in Sweden.) Only 15-20% of people in the US have been infected, and almost half a million excess deaths so far. With the lockdown, weekly excess deaths have been double a bad influenza year in the Netherlands, https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/2/20-2999_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/2/20-2999_article The infection fatality rate for Covid-19 has been estimated at 10x that of seasonal flu. https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201030/covid-19-infection-fatality-ratio-is-about-one-point-15-percent https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201030/covid-19-infection-...
  - 6y ago
hertzrat 6y ago
The article also mentions a case of 20+ people waiting for an icu bed to open up, but there being only 4 total at that location
- raarts 6y ago
  This also happened multiple times the last ten years in for example The Netherlands. To remedy this hospitals move patients around between them. Is not unusual during peak months of the year. If you Google around (and set the time frame to 2001-2019) you find a lot of press articles on overloaded ICU's, temporarily closed wards, patients stops, postponed surgery etc. In most Western countries the health care system has been increasingly strained. And even a slightly worse flu than normal would inevitably have resulted in severe problems. Even without covid-19.

nairboon 6y ago

Hopefully Aviptadil could soon free up some ICU capacity.

tim333 6y ago

Political leadership maybe does make a difference. I see since mid Jan when the US presidency changed the US is down about 5x in cases while Brazil is up 33%. They have now taken over the US's long run as #1 in the world for daily deaths.