Amazon city scrambles to provide oxygen to COVID-19 patients
Source: AP
By MAURICIO SAVARESE and DAVID BILLER
SAO PAULO (AP) — Doctors in the Amazon rainforest’s biggest city are having to choose which COVID-19 patients can breathe amid dwindling oxygen stocks and an effort to airlift some of the infected to other states.
Some hope for Manaus, an isolated city of 2.2 million people, landed in a Brazilian air force plane on Friday with 6,000 liters of oxygen that was distributed to hospitals. But as the pandemic hits hard, locals wonder how long the supply will last.
In a city considered to be the capital of the Amazon, every oxygen tank counts.
On Thursday, as heavy rain poured down in Manaus, Rafael Pereira carried a small tank containing five cubic meters of oxygen for his mother-in-law at the 28 de Agosto hospital. He didn’t want to be interviewed because of his stress, but he looked relieved when the tank — which he said would aid her breathing for an additional two hours — was taken inside.
A family member of a patient hospitalized with COVID-19 waits in line in hopes of refilling empty oxygen tanks, outside the Nitron da Amazonia company, in Manaus, Amazonas state, Brazil, Friday, Jan. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros)
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/sao-paulo-coronavirus-pandemic-latin-america-forests-bb4d95d6a5ae5b2c950d8ece3321b9d1