Brazil becoming coronavirus hot spot as testing falters

A cemetery worker stands before the coffin containing the remains of Edenir Rezende Bessa, who is suspected to have died of COVID-19, as relatives attend her burial, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, April 22, 2020. After visiting 3 primary care health units she was accepted in a hospital that treats new coronavirus cases, where she died on Tuesday. "People need to believe that this is serious, it kills", said her son Rodrigo Bessa who works at a hospital as nurse in the Espirito Santo state. (AP Photo/Leo Correa) A cemetery worker stands before the coffin containing the remains of Edenir Rezende Bessa, who is suspected to have died of COVID-19, as relatives attend her burial, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, April 22, 2020. After visiting 3 primary care health units she was accepted in a hospital that treats new coronavirus cases, where she died on Tuesday. "People need to believe that this is serious, it kills", said her son Rodrigo Bessa who works at a hospital as nurse in the Espirito Santo state. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

By DAVID BILLER, DIANE JEANTET AND LEO CORREA / The Associated Press April 25, 2020 5 min read

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Cases of the new coronavirus are overwhelming hospitals, morgues and cemeteries across Brazil as Latin America’s largest nation veers closer to becoming one of the world’s pandemic hot spots.

Medical officials in Rio de Janeiro and at least four other major cities have warned that their hospital systems are on the verge of collapse, or already too overwhelmed to take any more patients.

Health experts expect the number of infections in the country of 211 million people will be much higher than what has been reported because of insufficient, delayed testing.

Meanwhile, President Jair Bolsonaro has shown no sign of wavering from his insistence that COVID-19 is a relatively minor disease and that broad social-distancing measures are not needed to stop it. He has said only Brazilians at high risk should be isolated.

In Manaus, the biggest city in the Amazon, officials said a cemetery has been forced to dig mass graves because there have been so many deaths. Workers have been burying 100 corpses a day – triple the pre-virus average of burials.