Rio de Janeiro (TEH) – A photo causes concern and unrest in Brazil during the Corona crisis. Because the image of dozens of open graves leads to speculation in the media that the number of victims of the coronavirus could be higher than the numbers in public statistics show.
The picture shows dozens of open graves in the cemetery of the Vila Formosa in São Paulo, one next to the other. Since the onset of the Corona crisis, the number of funerals in the cemetery, one of the largest in Latin America, has risen by 30 percent, according to a report by the UOL portal on Saturday.
The number of corona infected people in Brazil was officially more than 9,000 recently, 365 people have died in connection with the virus, most of them in the state of São Paulo. With more than 40 million inhabitants, it is the most populous state in the country.
In an interview with the radio station “Jovem Pan”, however, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro asked whether the photo was possibly a “fake”. The Washington Post published it on page 1 on Thursday. However, according to media reports, the number of corona deaths in Brazil is actually much higher. As the “Folha de S. Paulo” recently reported, up to 40 deaths a day are buried in São Paulo, who was suspected of having COVID-19, but the test result was no longer available in time. So they do not appear in the statistics of the Ministry of Health in Brasília.
According to Folha, 14,000 samples had accumulated in the “Instituto Adolfo Lutz” in São Paulo, something like the official laboratory of the ministry, by the beginning of the week. 1200 are added every day, 1000 can be processed by the institute a day. “What we’re seeing right now are the numbers from two or three weeks ago,” said Sergio Cimerman of the Brazilian Infectious Society. “That worries me because we will have an explosion of cases in a few weeks, right in the middle of the constraints of public life.”
This would serve as an argument that the restrictions didn’t work. Take President Jair Bolsonaro, for example, who changed his tone about the coronavirus in a television speech on Tuesday after playing it down for weeks as “gripezinha” (little flu). However, he largely retained the content, saying that he was worried about life and also about preserving jobs.
The number of corona infected people in Brazil was officially more than 9,000 recently, 365 people have died in connection with the virus, most of them in the state of São Paulo. With more than 40 million inhabitants, it is the most populous state in the country.
In an interview with the radio station “Jovem Pan”, however, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro asked whether the photo was possibly a “fake”. The Washington Post published it on page 1 on Thursday. However, according to media reports, the number of corona deaths in Brazil is actually much higher. As the “Folha de S. Paulo” recently reported, up to 40 deaths a day are buried in São Paulo, who was suspected of having COVID-19, but the test result was no longer available in time. So they do not appear in the statistics of the Ministry of Health in Brasília.
According to Folha, 14,000 samples had accumulated in the “Instituto Adolfo Lutz” in São Paulo, something like the official laboratory of the ministry, by the beginning of the week. 1200 are added every day, 1000 can be processed by the institute a day. “What we’re seeing right now are the numbers from two or three weeks ago,” said Sergio Cimerman of the Brazilian Infectious Society. “That worries me because we will have an explosion of cases in a few weeks, right in the middle of the constraints of public life.”
This would serve as an argument that the restrictions didn’t work. Take President Jair Bolsonaro, for example, who changed his tone about the coronavirus in a television speech on Tuesday after playing it down for weeks as “gripezinha” (little flu). However, he largely retained the content, saying that he was worried about life and also about preserving jobs.
