I have relatives in the capital of Amazonas State, Manaus, amid the pandemic mayhem. The seventh largest city of Brazil, with over 2,2 million inhabitants, home to an industrial park and an international airport, should be able to attend its population in ordinary times. Instead, we are witnessing with awe the repercussion of Christmas and New Year festivities. A few days into 2021, also young people are dying of COVID before they can reach assistance. A combination of governance failure with lack of cooperation from the population (who overturned the Christmas lockdown and celebrated as usual) has resulted in the collapse of the health system last week. My cousin working 12 hour-shifts on the front line, is haunted. One can imagine the trauma, to learn that friends and acquaintances are dying everyday. Rumor has it that even the super rich can’t find aerial aid at the moment.
In crowded hospitals, the lack of oxygen supplies threatened also the lives of non COVID related patients. Lo and behold, premature babies needed to be relocated to other parts of the country. Exhaustion in the health system is followed by the overload in cemeteries, that cannot cope with the pace of burials. The price of medical supplies rise, as per the law of supply and demand.
Meanwhile the delinquent-president, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, still laughs, downplaying the virus that sweeps through Brazil. Vaccination was mocked at and had to be fought for by estate governors in cooperation with independent scientific institutions.
It is astounding to realize that people are dying from lack of oxygen in the heart of the largest forest in the world. Necropolitics. How did we get here? It’s worth mentioning that it is summer in the Southern hemisphere and there is no sign of herd immunity on the horizon, as some people expected. I keep remembering Naomi Klein’s lesson of ‘Shock Doctrine’. Stay vigilant also to what else is happening on the background. “Cui bono?” Who profits by it?
Read more on: I have relatives amid the mayhem of the pandemic in the capital of Amazonas State, Manaus. The seventh largest city of Brazil, with over 2,2 million inhabitants, home to an industrial park and an international airport, should be able to attend its population in ordinary times. Instead, we are witnessing with awe the repercussion of Christmas and New Year festivities. A few days into 2021, also young people are dying of COVID before they can reach assistance. A combination of governance failure with lack of cooperation from the population (who overturned the Christmas lockdown and celebrated as usual) has resulted in the collapse of the health system this week. My cousin working 12 hour-shifts on the front line, is haunted. One can imagine the trauma, to learn that friends and acquaintances are dying everyday. Rumor has it that even the super rich can’t find aerial aid at the moment.
In crowded hospitals, the lack of oxygen supplies threatened also the lives of non covid related patients. Lo and behold, premature babies needed to be relocated to other parts of the country. Exhaustion in the health system is followed by the overload in cemeteries, that cannot cope with the pace of burials. The price of medical supplies rise, as per the law of supply and demand.
Meanwhile the delinquent-president, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, still laughs, downplaying the virus that sweeps through Brazil. Vaccination was mocked at and had to be fought for by estate governors in cooperation with independent scientific institutions.
It is astounding to realize that people are dying from lack of oxygen in the heart of the largest forest in the world. Necropolitics. How did we get here? It’s worth mentioning that it is summer in the Southern hemisphere and there is no sign of herd immunity on the horizon, as some people expected. I keep remembering Naomi Klein’s lesson of ‘Shock Doctrine’. Stay vigilant also to what else is happening on the background. “Cui bono?” Who profits by it?