Brazil: Christ! The COVID19er!

The Coronavirus pandemic is always on the lookout for the most vulnerable, in the worst conditions. When these two circumstances align, it doesn’t hesitate to send the grim reaper to harvest innocent souls. Sending red lines on graphs shooting upward, at acute angles on news programmes around the world. Such a situation occurred recently in Brazil. A meat packing plant, full of indigenous workers with little access to clean water and health services. BOOM! COVID19’s ship had truly come in!

South America’s U.S.A.? Brazil’s death toll is flying faster than the great Jairzinho going down the wing. Surpassing 21,000, its consistently clocking up deaths of over a thousand on a daily basis. Indigenous leaders aren’t sure of how many of this total, are from their community, as indigenous names aren’t always used when being admitted to hospital. Brazil zoomed past Russia, in total infections (330,890) behind the Big Daddy of the COVID19 pandemic, the United States.

We’ll Meat Again! It’s not just meat packing facilities in Brazil, that are proving to be ideal breeding grounds for COVID19. Throw a dart at a revolving globe and you’re likely to hit a meat processing plant that has optimum conditions for the Coronavirus to go forth and multiply. Cold damp crowded conditions, where workers eat and travel together, making it impossible to practice social distancing. You can almost hear the virus muttering ‘who needs a cruise ship, when you’ve got a meat plant?’ Over 10,000 meat workers in the States have gone down with the COVID19, with 30 succumbing permanently to the decease. Lawsuits are now firing up, with outraged loved ones thinking their loss could’ve been avoided. This pattern is also occurring in Australia, Ireland and Germany.

5 million cases can’t be right! Coronavirus has now topped 5 million cases worldwide. With a record 106,000 new cases being recorded in a 24-hour period, according to Donald Trump’s favourite institution, the World Health Organisation. According to their director-general, two-thirds of new cases are coming from four hot-beds of the virus – The States, Brazil, Russia and India. This pandemic is obviously not done with the human race as yet and we have a long way to go before we’re out of the woods, no matter what politicians say on the 6 o’clock news. We still need to be vigilant and take special care in low and middle-income communities.

China’s tide turned? Now the good news. China is reporting that it has no new local coronavirus cases for first time since the pandemic began. But the bad news is China has seen an upturn in imported cases, mainly involving returning Chinese nationals coming home from abroad. For locals, there are still some restrictions in place, with people being closely monitored and treated. Hyper-vigilant new measures are said to be being used to track and trap remaining cases. Of course, the last word on China’s death toll has been left to that well-known hydroxychloroquine taker and Clorox injector, President Donald Trump. ‘The figures seem a little on the light side.’ Gotta love the Donald! x