I don’t think people are quite getting how significantly the arrival of the P1 variant has changed the game in Brazil, signaling a much darker phase of the pandemic, and what this means for the world.
Nearly 67,000 people died in March — twice the number of any month during the pandemic. 
But it’s not just that more people are dying — it’s that patients are now arriving far sicker. The patient profile is also changing. Younger people are needing more intensive care — and dying at higher rates.
The mortality rate among patients aged 18-45 has positively soared, according to a nationwide survey by the Brazilian Association of Intensive Medicine.
But the mortality rate has risen among all patients, too. Nearly 73 percent of patients on mechanics ventilators are now dying, compared with 60 percent at the beginning of the pandemic.
Half of patients — half! — younger than 45 put on a mechanical ventilator now aren’t making it.
Yesterday, nearly 4,200 people were killed by the virus. This is an unheard of rate in Brazil, which for months was marooned at a plateau of around 1,000 deaths per day. Things have always been bad in Brazil — but never this bad.
Things have rapidly changed this year. In one month, it went to 2,000 dead per day, then nearly 3,000. And then yesterday — more than 4,200.
If this isn’t a warning to the world, I don’t know what is.
If this isn’t a warning to the world, I don’t know what is.
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