Anti-government protesters took to the streets in more than a score of cities across Brazil on Saturday as the nation’s confirmed death toll from COVID-19 soared past half a million — a tragedy many critics blame on President Jair Bolsonaro’s attempt to minimize the disease. Thousands gathered in downtown Rio de Janeiro waving flags with slogans such as “Get out Bolsonaro. Government of hunger and unemployment.” Read:Sinovac vaccine restores a Brazilian city to near normal “Brazil is experiencing a great setback. The country was an exemplary country for vaccination in the world. We have widely recognized institutions, but today we are in a sad situation ”, said Isabela Gouljor, a 20-year-old student who joined the protest in Rio. Other marchers hoisted posters reading: “500 thousand deaths. It’s his fault,” alluding to Bolsonaro. Similar marches took place in at least 22 or Brazil’s 26 states, as well as in the Federal District, Brasilia. They were promoted by left-wing opposition parties who have been heartened by Bolsonaro’s declining poll ratings with next year’s presidential race looming. “Get out Bolsonaro, genocidal,” yelled Rio demonstrators, some of them wearing t-shirts or masks with the image of former leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva — who leads Bolsonaro in some polls. Read:In Brazil’s Amazon, rivers rise to record levels In São Paulo, protesters dropped red balloons as a tribute to the victims of the virus Bolsonaro’s supporters have taken more often to the streets over the past month, in large part because many agree with his dismissal of restrictions meant to stifle the coronavirus and anger that lockdown measures have hurt businesses. Critics say such messages, as well as Bolsonaro’s promotion of disproven treatments such as hydroxychloroquine, have contributed to the soaring death toll and a sluggish vaccine campaign that has fully inoculated less than 12% of the population. The country of some 213 million people is registering nearly 100,000 new infections and 2,000 deaths a day. “For the leftists, putting their followers in the streets is a way of wearing Bolsonaro down for the election,” said Leandro Consentino, a political science professor at Insper, a university in Sao Paulo. “But at the same, time they are contradicting themselves and losing the discourse of maintaining health care, because they are causing the same agglomerations as Bolsonaro.” Read:Why are so many babies dying of Covid-19 in Brazil? Saturday’s marches came a week after Bolsonaro led a massive motorcycle parade of supporters in Sao Paulo, though his allies and foes differ dramatically on the size of that event. “Bolsonaro needs to show that he maintains significant support to give a message of strength to those who are investigating the actions of his government in Congress”, Consentino said.

A bus carrying mineworkers ran off a road in the Peru on Friday, leaving at least 27 people dead, according to local officials and the mining company. Fire Department Lt. Hugo Meza said the accident in the province of Lucanas left dead and injured passengers scattered along the hillside. At least 13 workers were injured. We are all devastated by this news and we have already started a thorough investigation,” said Ignacio Bustamante, chief executive officer of London-based Hochschild Mining. “However, our immediate priorities are to support those involved in the accident and their families and to work together with the relevant authorities.” READ: 7 killed, 22 injured in three road accidents in Chattogram, Rangamati Police said they did not immediately know why the accident occurred. Those aboard the bus were heading from the Pallancata gold and silver mine to the city of Arequipa. READ: 10 killed in India road accident

Just one COVID-19 patient is in critical condition at the Dr. Geraldo Cesar Reis clinic in Serrana, a city of almost 46,000 in Sao Paulo state’s countryside. The 63-year-old woman rejected the vaccine that was offered to every adult resident of Serrana as part of a trial. Doctors say the woman was awaiting one of Pfizer’s shots, which remain scarce in Brazil. But she is an outlier here. Most adults rolled up their sleeves when offered the vaccine made by the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac, and the experiment has transformed the community into an oasis of near normalcy in a country where many communities continue to suffer. Doctors who treated COVID-19 in Serrana have seen their patient loads evaporate. They now help colleagues with other diseases and recently started eating lunch at home. Life has returned to the streets: Neighbors chat and families have weekend barbecues. Outsiders who previously had no reason to set foot in Serrana are arriving for haircuts and restaurant outings. Read:In Brazil’s Amazon, rivers rise to record levels “We’re now as full as we used to be,” Rogério Silva, a staffer at a store for cheap refreshments and snacks, said in an interview. “Weeks ago, people wouldn’t form a line in here, wouldn’t eat in, and I wouldn’t let them use the bathroom. Now it’s back.” The success story emerged as other population centers keep struggling with the virus, enduring rising infections and new government-imposed restrictions. Meanwhile, the vaccine appeared headed for wider use. The World Health Organization on Tuesday granted emergency use authorization to the Sinovac shot for people 18 and over, the second such authorization it has granted to a Chinese company. The experiment known as “Project S” lasted four months and tested Sinovac’s shot in real-world conditions. The preliminary results made public Monday suggest the pandemic can be controlled if three-quarters of the population is fully vaccinated with Sinovac, said Ricardo Palacios, a director at Sao Paulo state’s Butantan Institute and coordinator of the study, which was not peer-reviewed. “The most important result was understanding that we can control the pandemic even without vaccinating the entire population,” Palacios said. The results offer hope to hundreds of millions of people, especially in developing nations. Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, Zimbabwe and others are likewise reliant on the Chinese shot, which is cheaper than vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. The city’s population was split into four geographic areas regardless of age and gender, and most adults received two shots by the end of April. Results released Monday showed that the pandemic was controlled after three of the areas had been vaccinated. It was not clear if vaccine uptake was the same in each area. Serrana saw vast improvements: Deaths fell by 95%, hospitalizations by 86% and symptomatic cases by 80%. The project “shows the protection exists and that the vaccine is effective. No doubt,” Gonzalo Vecina, one of the founders of Brazil’s health regulator and a medical school professor, told The Associated Press. Likewise, Denise Garrett, vice president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, which advocates for expanding global vaccine access, called the results “good and very encouraging.” Both Vecina and Garrett said unanswered questions remain and that more data is needed to properly analyze the results, including information about people who got shots but did not develop immunity. Read:In Argentina, doctors adapt as COVID-19 strains hospitals The spread of the virus in Serrana slowed while neighboring communities like Ribeirao Preto, just 12 miles west, saw COVID-19 surge. The upswing was largely blamed on more contagious variants. Hospitals in Ribeirao Preto are so full of COVID-19 patients that the mayor imposed strict shutdown measures last week, including halting public transportation and limiting hours for the city’s 700,000 residents to buy groceries. Some will wait months for their vaccines. Almost all shops are closed, and 95% of intensive-care unit beds are occupied by virus patients. Elmano Silveira, 54, works at a local drugstore and for the first time wishes he lived in Serrana, which was looked down upon before the vaccination drive. “My friends from there used to call me all the time. ... Now I’m the one calling them,” Silveira said. “Before the pandemic, we had a big city vibe here. It was really busy. Now it’s like a desert.” Just months ago, it was Serrana struggling to cope, according to Dr. João Antonio Madalosso Jr. For every patient who recovered in the first three months of 2021, two more arrived in bad shape, he said. “Then, by the end of January, we heard this project was coming to Serrana. And calmness set in, little by little,” said Madalosso, 32, as he pointed at empty seats of the hospital’s COVID-19 ward. “Just look at this. This is much calmer than Ribeirao Preto and the entire region. The vaccine is no cure, but it is the solution to transform this into a light flu so people can carry on.” That doesn’t mean Serrana is entirely rid of the virus. Some residents refused to get the shot. Others skipped the second dose or got infected before the vaccine took full effect. A few had prior diseases that prevented them from getting the vaccines. Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, has repeatedly cast doubt on the shot’s efficacy. He said last year his administration wouldn’t buy the Chinese vaccine and that he wouldn’t let Brazilians become “guinea pigs.″ His health ministry signed a deal to buy tens of millions of doses only after Brazil’s health regulator approved the shot in January. Had the government acted sooner, Brazil could have had twice as many Sinovac vaccines by now — 100 million doses, Butantan’s head, Dimas Covas, told a congressional inquiry last week. The shot accounts for half the vaccines made available to date in the country. Vaccines arrived too late for some of the 463,000 people who have died from COVID-19 in Brazil, which has the world’s second-highest death toll. The relative return to normal “could be happening all over Brazil if it were not for the delay in vaccinations,” said João Doria, Sao Paulo’s governor and an adversary of Bolsonaro. “These results show there’s only one way to control the pandemic: vaccines, vaccines, vaccines.” Bolsonaro-fueled skepticism of Sinovac’s shot reached Serrana. It didn’t help that Sao Paulo state’s release of efficacy data was confusing, with Doria initially claiming 78% protection against mild cases on Jan. 7, then revising that five days later to 50.4%, barely above the level required by health authorities. Carmen da Silva Cunha, 81, has lost friends to the virus, and she got vaccinated despite “a lot of people trying to get into my head regarding the vaccine.” Read:At least 25 dead during Brazilian police raid in Rio “Serrana got better, but it could be much more if a lot of people had taken their second shot,” she said in an interview at the hospital, where she sought treatment for a sore throat. She tested negative for COVID-19, and doctors expected her to return home in short order. Mayor Leo Capitanelli is pleased with results. Standing beside a health screening station on the road into the city, he said people have had only mild and moderate COVID-19 cases in recent weeks. And he boasted about Serrana’s plan to host a music festival for about 5,000 spectators, all vaccinated with Sinovac’s shot. “This project brought our pride back,” he said. “And it will bring hope for a fresh start next year.”

Rivers around the biggest city in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest have swelled to levels unseen in over a century of record-keeping, according to data published Tuesday by Manaus’ port authorities, straining a society that has grown weary of increasingly frequent flooding. The Rio Negro was at its highest level since records began in 1902, with a depth of 29.98 meters (98 feet) at the port’s measuring station. The nearby Solimoes and Amazon rivers were also nearing all-time highs, flooding streets and houses in dozens of municipalities and affecting some 450,000 people in the region. Read:In Argentina, doctors adapt as COVID-19 strains hospitals Higher-than-usual precipitation is associated with the La Nina phenomenon, when currents in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean affect global climate patterns. Environmental experts and organizations including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say there is strong evidence that human activity and global warming are altering the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, including La Nina. Seven of the 10 biggest floods in the Amazon basin have occurred in the past 13 years, data from Brazil’s state-owned Geological Survey shows. “If we continue to destroy the Amazon the way we do, the climatic anomalies will become more and more accentuated,” said Virgílio Viana, director of the Sustainable Amazon Foundation, a nonprofit. ” Greater floods on the one hand, greater droughts on the other.” Large swaths of Brazil are currently drying up in a severe drought, with a possible shortfall in power generation from the nation’s hydroelectric plants and increased electricity prices, government authorities have warned. But in Manaus, 66-year-old Julia Simas has water ankle-deep in her home. Simas has lived in the working-class neighborhood of Sao Jorge since 1974 and is used to seeing the river rise and fall with the seasons. Simas likes her neighborhood because it is safe and clean. But the quickening pace of the floods in the last decade has her worried. “From 1974 until recently, many years passed and we wouldn’t see any water. It was a normal place,” she said. Read:At least 25 dead during Brazilian police raid in Rio Aerial view of streets flooded by the Negro River in downtown Manaus. (AP Photos/Nelson Antoine) When the river does overflow its banks and flood her street, she and other residents use boards and beams to build rudimentary scaffolding within their homes to raise their floors above the water. “I think human beings have contributed a lot (to this situation,” she said. “Nature doesn’t forgive. She comes and doesn’t want to know whether you’re ready to face her or not.” Flooding also has a significant impact on local industries such as farming and cattle ranching. Many family-run operations have seen their production vanish under water. Others have been unable to reach their shops, offices and market stalls or clients. “With these floods, we’re out of work,” said Elias Gomes, a 38-year-old electrician in Cacau Pirera, on the other side of the Rio Negro, though noted he’s been able to earn a bit by transporting neighbors in his small wooden boat. Gomes is now looking to move to a more densely populated area where floods won’t threaten his livelihood. Read:3 killed, 27 hospitalized after boat capsizes off San Diego Limited access to banking in remote parts of the Amazon can make things worse for residents, who are often unable to get loans or financial compensation for lost production, said Viana, of the Sustainable Amazon Foundation. “This is a clear case of climate injustice: Those who least contributed to global warming and climate change are the most affected.” Meteorologists say Amazon water levels could continue to rise slightly until late June or July, when floods usually peak.

Verónica Verdino, an Argentine doctor, helped a therapist insert a tube into the trachea of a COVID-19 patient during another hectic day in a hospital emergency room. Verdino, 31, has become adept at the delicate procedure during the current outbreak of coronavirus cases that has filled clinics in Buenos Aires and nearby towns with patients. A little over a year ago, before the pandemic hit Argentina, Verdino did not imagine that she would be performing so many intubations, and helping others with the same procedure, at the Llavallol Dr. Norberto Raúl Piacentini Hospital in the town of Lomas de Zamora, outside Buenos Aires. Read:Why are so many babies dying of Covid-19 in Brazil? Now doctors who used to be on duty in general wards have become experts in this and other complex techniques typical of intensive care specialists as they help patients who are seriously ill with COVID-19. Some wards have been converted into intensive care units because the outbreak is straining the health system. The situation at the hospital where Verdino works is similar in many public and private health facilities in Buenos Aires and nearby towns, with an average of more than 20,000 infections and 400 deaths per day in recent weeks and 100% occupation of ICUs in some centers. Doctors say they are seeing many younger patients, partly because youths are being infected with coronavirus variants at social gatherings, while older people are protected by vaccines they have received. “We’re cutting corners everywhere ... We have all the illnesses other than COVID, plus this (coronavirus) wave that exploded,” Verdino told The Associated Press during a recent 24-hour shift. The husband of the woman who was intubated by Verdino stared dejectedly through the glass from the other side of a door. Nearby, in another room, two patients lay connected to respirators. A few meters away, a man who had just died was placed in a black plastic bag. A few days later, on another grueling shift, Verdino climbed onto a small bench next to the bed of a man she had tried to intubate, leaned over his chest and performed CPR in a desperate attempt to save his life. Several of her colleagues helped her. Read:India reports 366,161 new COVID-19 cases The patient died. Verdina and her colleague, Stephanie Muñoz, took time to prepare the man’s body and the room before his son viewed him through the window of the door. Nurses describe a situation known as “warm bed”, in which a patient who has died is promptly replaced in a room by another seriously ill person. General ward medics have also learned to master the use of complex drugs that keep patients sedated and to study electrocardiograms and CT scans, as well as to perform laryngoscopes. They do it as oxygen supplies become scarce in hospitals, which have formed networks to assist each other when they can. “I was used to working a lot but this overwhelms you in everything,” said nurse Silvia Cardoso, who works with Verdino. Cardoso said she was shocked by the number of young people who are hospitalized with serious symptoms, something that did not happen previously. “It could be prevented,” she lamented, suggesting that some young people had not observed health protocols. Read:Pfizer COVID-19 shot expanded to US children as young as 12 Police in some Argentine towns often break up clandestine parties. In restaurants that serve outdoors, tables full of diners are placed close to each other. Parks are full of people having picnics and playing sports. There are frequent social protests, including for higher wages, in Buenos Aires. With people exhausted by quarantines and vaccination programs going slowly, politicians argue over issues such as whether to allow students back to class. During a peak of coronavirus cases, students went to school in Buenos Aires but were not allowed to do so in the city suburbs, creating a confusing situation. Many doctors try to stay out of the political disputes, instead urging people to stick to measures aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19. Argentina has so far reported more than 67,300 confirmed deaths and more than 3.1 million people sickened by the disease. If people don’t collaborate, “the point will come where the health system collapses,” Verdino said.

Police targeting drug traffickers raided a slum in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday and at least one officer and two dozen others died after being shot, authorities said. The civil police’s press office confirmed the death of the cop and 24 alleged “criminals” in a message to the Associated Press. A police helicopter flew low over the Jacarezinho favela as heavily armed men fled police by leaping from roof to roof, according to images shown on local television. Also read: Grim list of deaths at police hands grows even after verdict One woman told The Associated Press she saw police kill a badly wounded man she described as helpless and unarmed who they found after he had fled into her house. Felipe Curi, a detective in Rio’s civil police, denied there had been any executions. “There were no suspects killed. They were all traffickers or criminals who tried to take the lives of our police officers and there was no other alternative,” he said during a press conference. Police had to struggle to enter the favela because of concrete barriers built by the criminals, according to the detective. Shooting spread throughout the community. During the operation, several people Curi described as criminals invaded neighboring houses trying to hide. Six were arrested, he said. The police also seized 16 pistols, six rifles, a submachine gun, 12 grenades and a shotgun. Service on a subway line was temporarily suspended “due to intense shooting in the region,” according to a statement from the company that operates it. Earlier, two subway passengers were injured when a stray bullet shattered the glass of one car. Jacarezinho, one of the city’s most populous favelas, with some 40,000 residents, is dominated by the Comando Vermelho, one of Brazil’s leading criminal organizations. The police consider Jacarezinho to be one of the group’s headquarters. Thursday’s operation was aimed at investigating the recruitment of teenagers to hijack trains and commit other crimes, police said in a statement. Also read: 1 verdict, then 6 police killings across America in 24 hours A group of about 50 residents in Jacarezinho poured into a narrow street on Thursday afternoon to follow members of the state legislature’s human rights commission as it conducted an inspection. They shouted “justice” while clapping their hands and some raised their right fists into the air. Human Rights Watch Brazil said in a statement that the public prosecutor must immediately investigate possible police abuses. The police statement said the criminal gang has a “warlike structure of soldiers equipped with rifles, grenades, bulletproof vests, pistols, camouflaged clothing and other military accessories.” The Candido Mendes University’s Public Safety Observatory said that at least 12 police operations in Rio state this year have resulted in three or more deaths. Observatory director Silvia Ramos said Thursday’s raid was among the deadliest in the city’s recent history. Many of them appear to violate a ruling by Brazil’s Supreme Court last year that ordered the police to suspend operations during the pandemic, restricting them to “absolutely exceptional” situations. The Supreme Court declined to comment when asked by The Associated Press if Thursday’s operation would qualify. Rio police killed an average of more than five people a day during the first quarter of 2021, the most lethal start of a year since the state government began regularly releasing such data more than two decades ago, according to the Observatory.

Three people were killed and more than two dozen others were hospitalized Sunday after a boat capsized and broke apart in rough water just off the San Diego coast during a suspected human smuggling operation, authorities said. Lifeguards, the U.S. Coast Guard and other agencies responded around 10 a.m. following reports of an overturned vessel in the waves near the rugged peninsula of Point Loma, according to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department. The original call was for a handful of people overboard but as rescuers arrived in boats and jet skis they quickly realized “it was going to be a bigger situation with more people,” said San Diego Lifeguard Services Lt. Rick Romero. Read Also: Search for 9 missing from capsized boat in Gulf on 6th day “There are people in the water, drowning, getting sucked out the rip current there,” he said. Seven people were pulled from the waves, including three who drowned, said Romero. One person was rescued from a cliff and 22 others managed to make it to shore on their own, he said. “Once we arrived on scene, the boat had basically been broken apart,” Romero said. “Conditions were pretty rough: 5 to 6 feet of surf, windy, cold.” A total of 27 people were transported to hospitals with “a wide variety of injuries” including hypothermia, Romero said. Most of the victims were able to walk themselves to ambulances, he said. Officials said the group was overcrowded on a 40-foot (12-meter) cabin cruiser that is larger than the typical open-top wooden panga-style boats often used by smugglers to bring people illegally into the U.S. from Mexico. “Every indication from our perspective was this was a smuggling vessel. We haven’t confirmed their nationality,” said Jeff Stephenson, a supervising agent with U.S. Border Patrol. Agents were at hospitals preparing to interview survivors, including the boat’s captain who Stephenson described as a “suspected smuggler.” Smugglers typically face federal charges and those being smuggled are usually deported. Officials said smugglers sometimes use larger more conventional boats to try and blend in with regular maritime traffic. Read Also: Why are so many babies dying of Covid-19 in Brazil? San Diego Fire-Rescue Department spokesman Jose Ysea said when he arrived on scene near the Cabrillo National Monument there was a “large debris field” of splintered wood and other items in the choppy waters. “In that area of Point Loma it’s very rocky. It’s likely the waves just kept pounding the boat, breaking it apart,” he said. There were life preservers on board, but it wasn’t known how many or whether any passengers were wearing them, officials said. Among the rescuers was an unnamed Navy sailor who was in the area with his family and jumped in the water to assist someone in an effort described by Romero as a “huge help.” Officials believed everyone on board was accounted for right away, but crews in boats and aircraft continued to search the area for several hours for other possible survivors, Ysea said. On Thursday, border officials intercepted a panga-type vessel traveling without navigation lights 11 miles (18 kilometers) off the coast of Point Loma with 21 people on board. The crew took all 15 men and six women into custody. Agents determined all were Mexican citizens with no legal status to enter the U.S., according to a statement released by Customs and Border Protection. Two of the people on the boat, the suspected smugglers, will face charges, it said. Read Also: Charter bus rollover kills 3, injures 18 outside San Diego Border Patrol on Friday said law enforcement officials would be ramping up operations to disrupt maritime smuggling off the coast of San Diego this weekend. As warmer weather comes to San Diego, there is a misperception that it will make illegal crossings safer or easier, the agency said in a statement. In early March, an SUV packed with migrants collided with a tractor-trailer in the farming community of Holtville, California, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) east of San Diego. The crash killed 13 of 25 people inside 1997 Ford Expedition, including the driver, in one of the deadliest border-related crashes in U.S. history.

For a sixth day, rescue crews returned Sunday to a capsized lift boat in the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana, looking for nine crew members who have not been found, the Coast Guard said. Officials have released little information about their continuous search in the murky seas surrounding the capsized Seacor Power lift boat some 8 miles (13 kilometers) off the coast since announcing divers found two bodies inside the ship Friday night. Six people were rescued alive after the boat capsized Tuesday in a storm. Four bodies have been found — one Wednesday, one Thursday and two on Friday. Families of the missing crew members haven’t given up that maybe they found an air pocket or are still alive. “We have hope,” Marion Cuyler wrote in a text to a reporter. Cuyler texted her fiancée, crane operator Chaz Morales, that the weather appeared too bad to head out Tuesday. She said Morales texted her back that he wished he could stay ashore. “We aren’t defeated. We will keep fighting,” Cuyler texted a reporter late Saturday. Calm seas met rescuers for the first time since the bulky vessel flipped over Tuesday afternoon south of Port Fourchon, a major base for the U.S. oil and gas industry. It has three legs it can lower to the sea floor to lift it out of the water as a temporary platform. Part of one of those legs poked out of the water Sunday. A corner of the boat’s platform was above the surface with the orange-painted safety railing pointing back at the sea. Two boats were nearby, a large platform boat with equipment and a smaller boat tethered to the stricken vessel. Divers are trying to get inside the boat, capsized where the sea is 50 to 55 feet (15 to 17 meters) deep. Rescuers in the air and the water have been searching an area the size of Rhode Island for the remaining nine missing crew members. “We are continuing to search,” Coast Guard Petty Officer John Michelli said Sunday morning. “We’ve basically been 24-7 since the beginning.” Michelli referred questions about the diving operation to New Jersey-based Donjon Marine Co., which was contracted by boat-owner Seacor Power to lead the underwater search. A spokesperson for the company referred questions back to Houston-based Seacor on Sunday morning, and a spokesperson said Seacor didn’t have a comment Sunday. The boat was on its way to a Talos Energy Inc. oil platform at the mouth of the Mississippi River when its was overtaken by a storm with winds 80 to 90 mph (130 to 145 kph) and waves 7 to 9 feet high (2.1 to 2.7 meters), the Coast Guard has said. Talos Energy said in a statement it was Seacor Marine’s decision to send the boat out Tuesday. “The Seacor Power was in port for service and inspections for several days prior to its departure, The vessel was not at a Talos facility and was fully under the command of its captain and Seacor Marine, including when to depart the port,” Talos Energy said in a statement Saturday given to the The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate. Talos Energy said company officials were heartbroken and praying for everyone affected by the tragedy. Seacor didn’t respond to the Talos Energy statement. One of the bodies recovered Friday was Anthony Hartford, a 53-year-old ship cook. His wife said she got a 3 a.m. knock on the door telling her he was dead, The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported. “It’s no feeling right now,” Janet Hartford said. In the kitchen, six wilted red roses sat in a vase. She said her husband brought the flowers and cake to her work place for her birthday on March 30. It was the last time she saw her husband of 24 years and the father of their four children.

Raul Castro said Friday he is resigning as head of Cuba’s Communist Party, ending an era of formal leadership by he and his brother Fidel Castro that began with the 1959 revolution. The 89-year-old Castro made the announcement Friday in a speech at the opening of the Eighth congress of the ruling party, the only one allowed on the island. He said he was retiring with the sense of having “fulfilled his mission and confident in the future of the fatherland.” Castro didn’t say who he would endorse as his successor as first secretary of the Communist Party. But he previously indicated that he favors yielding control to 60-year-old Miguel Diaz-Canel, who succeeded him as president in 2018 and is the standard bearer of a younger generation of loyalists who have been pushing an economic opening without touching Cuba’s one-party system. His retirement means that for the first time in more than six decades Cubans won’t have a Castro formally guilding their affairs, and it comes at a difficult time, with many on the island anxious about what lies ahead. The coronavirus pandemic, painful financial reforms and restrictions imposed by the Trump administration have battered the economy, which shrank 11% last year as a result of a collapse in tourism and remittances. Long food lines and shortages have brought back echoes of the “special period” that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Discontent has been fueled by the spread of the internet and growing inequality. Much of the debate inside Cuba is focused on the pace of reform, with many complaining that the so-called “historic generation” represented by Castro has been too slow to open the economy. In January, Diaz-Canel finally pulled the trigger on a plan approved two congresses ago to unify the island’s dual currency system, giving rise to fears of inflation. He also threw the doors open to a broader range of private enterprise — a category long banned or tightly restricted — permitting Cubans to legally operate many sorts of self-run businesses from their homes. This year’s congress is expected to focus on unfinished reforms to overhaul state-run enterprises, attract foreign investment and provide more legal protection to private business activities. The Communist Party is made up of 700,000 activists and is tasked in Cuba’s constitution with directing the affairs of the nation and society. Fidel Castro, who led the revolution that drove dictator Fulgencio Batista from power in 1959, formally became head of the party in 1965, about four years after officially embracing socialism. He quickly absorbed the old party under his control and was the country’s unquestioned leader until falling ill inh 2006 and in 2008 handing over the presidency to his younger brother Raul, who had fought alongside him during the revolution. Raul succeeded him as head of the party in 2011. Fidel Castro died in 2016.

More than a year into the pandemic, deaths in Brazil are now at their peak. But despite the overwhelming evidence that Covid-19 rarely kills young children, in Brazil 1,300 babies have died from the virus. One doctor refused to test Jessika Ricarte's one-year-old son for Covid, saying his symptoms did not fit the profile of the virus. Two months later he died of complications from the disease, reports BBC. After two years of trying, and failed fertility treatments, teacher Jessika Ricarte had all but given up on having a family. Then she fell pregnant with Lucas. "His name comes from luminous. And he was a light in our life. He showed that happiness was much more than we imagined," she says. She first suspected something was wrong when Lucas, always a good eater, lost his appetite. At first Jessika wondered if he was teething. Lucas's godmother, a nurse, suggested that he might just have a sore throat. But after he developed a fever, then fatigue and slightly laboured breathing, Jessika took him to hospital, and asked for him to be tested for Covid. "The doctor put on the oximeter. Lucas's levels were 86%. Now I know that is not normal," says Jessika. But he was not feverish, so the doctor said: "My dear, don't worry. There's no need for a Covid test. It's probably just a minor sore throat." He told Jessika that Covid-19 was rare in children, gave her some antibiotics and sent her home. Despite her misgivings, there was no option to have Lucas tested privately at the time. Jessika says that some of his symptoms dissipated at the end of his 10-day antibiotics course, but the tiredness remained - as did her concerns about coronavirus. "I sent several videos to his godmother, my parents, my mother-in-law, and everyone said that I was exaggerating, that I should stop watching the news, that it was making me paranoid. But I knew that my son was not himself, that he was not breathing normally." This was May 2020, and the coronavirus epidemic was growing. Two people had already died in her town, Tamboril in Ceará, north-east Brazil. "Everyone knows each other here. The town was in shock." Jessika's husband Israel was worried that another hospital visit would increase the risk that she and Lucas would become infected with the virus. But the weeks went by, and Lucas became sleepier and sleepier. Finally on 3 June, Lucas vomited over and over again after eating lunch, and Jessika knew she had to act. They returned to their local hospital, where the doctor tested Lucas for Covid, to rule it out. Lucas's godmother, who worked there, broke the news to the couple that his test result was positive. "At the time, the hospital did not even have a resuscitator," says Jessika. Lucas was transferred to a paediatric intensive care unit in Sobral, over two hours away, where he was diagnosed with a condition called multi-system inflammatory syndrome (MIS).  This is an extreme immune response to the virus, which can cause inflammation of vital organs. Experts say the syndrome, which affects children up to six weeks after they are infected with coronavirus, is rare, but leading epidemiologist Dr Fatima Marinho from the University of São Paolo, says that, during the pandemic, she is seeing more cases of MIS than ever before. Although it doesn't account for all deaths. When Lucas was intubated, Jessika wasn't allowed to stay in the same room. She rang her sister-in-law to try and distract herself. "We could still hear the sound of the machine, the beep, until the machine stopped and there was that constant beep. And we know that happens when the person dies. After a few minutes, the machine started working again and I started to cry." The doctor told her Lucas had suffered a cardiac arrest but they had managed to revive him. Dr Manuela Monte, the paediatric doctor who treated Lucas for over a month in the ICU in Sobral, said she was surprised that Lucas's condition was so serious, because he did not have any risk factors. Most children affected by Covid have comorbidities - existing conditions such as diabetes or cardiovascular disease - or are overweight, according to Lohanna Tavares, a paediatric infectologist at Albert Sabin Children's Hospital in Fortaleza, the state capital. But that wasn't the case with Lucas.  During the 33 days Lucas was in the ICU, Jessika was only allowed to see him three times. Lucas needed immunoglobulin - a very expensive medication - to deflate his heart, but luckily an adult patient who had bought his own had donated one leftover ampoule to the hospital. Lucas was so ill that he went on to receive a second dose of immunoglobulin. He developed a rash on his body and was running a persistent fever. He needed support to breathe. Then Lucas began to improve and the doctors decided to take out his oxygen tube. They video-called Jessika and Israel so that he wouldn't feel alone as he regained consciousness. "When he heard our voices he started to cry," says Jessika. It was the last time they were to see their boy react. During the next video call "he had a paralysed look". The hospital requested a CT scan and discovered Lucas had had a stroke. Still, the couple were told Lucas would make a good recovery with the right care and would soon be moved out of ICU and into a general ward. When Jessika and Israel went to visit him, the doctor was just as hopeful as they were, she says. "That night, I put my cell phone on silent. I dreamed Lucas came up to me and kissed my nose. And the dream was a great feeling of love, gratitude and I woke up very happy. Then I saw my cell phone and saw the 10 calls that the doctor had made." The doctor told Jessika that Lucas's heart rate and oxygen levels had dropped suddenly, and he had died early that morning. She feels sure that if Lucas had been given a Covid test when she had requested it back in early May he would have survived. "It is important that doctors, even if they believe it is not Covid, do the test to eliminate the possibility," she says. "A baby does not say what he is feeling, so we depend on tests." Jessika believes that the delay in proper treatment made his condition more serious. "Lucas had several inflammations, 70% of the lung was compromised, the heart increased by 40%. It was a situation that could have been avoided." Dr Monte, who treated Lucas, agrees. She says that although MIS cannot be prevented, treatment is much more successful if the condition is diagnosed and treated early. "The earlier he would have received specialised care, the better," she says. "He arrived at the hospital already critically ill. I believe he could have had a different outcome if we could have treated him earlier." Jessika now wants to share Lucas's story to help others who may miss critical symptoms. "Every child I know was saved by some warning and the mother says: 'I saw your posts, I took my son to the hospital and he is now at home.' It's as if it were a little bit of Lucas," she says. "I have been doing for these people what I wish they had done for me. If I had had information, I would have been even more cautious." There is a misconception that children are at zero risk for Covid, says Dr Fatima Marinho, who is also a senior adviser to the international health NGO Vital Strategies. Marinho's research has found that a shockingly high number of children and babies have been affected by the virus. Between February 2020 and 15 March 2021, Covid-19 killed at least 852 of Brazil's children up to the age of nine, including 518 babies under one year old, according to figures from the Brazilian Ministry of Health. But Dr Marinho estimates that more than twice this number of children died of Covid. A serious problem of underreporting due to lack of Covid testing is bringing the numbers down, she says. Dr Marinho calculated the excess of deaths by unspecified acute respiratory syndrome during the pandemic, and found that there were 10 times more deaths by unexplained respiratory syndrome than in previous years. By adding these numbers, she estimates that the virus in fact killed 2,060 children under nine years old, including 1,302 babies. Why is this happening? Experts say the sheer number of Covid cases in the country - the second-highest number in the world - have increased the likelihood that Brazil's babies and young children are affected. "Of course, the more cases we have and, as a result, the more hospitalisations, the greater the number of deaths in all age groups, including children. But if the pandemic were controlled, this scenario could evidently be minimised," says Renato Kfouri, president of the Scientific Department of Immunisations of the Brazilian Society of Pediatrics. Such a high infection rate has overwhelmed Brazil's entire health care system. Across the country, oxygen supplies are dwindling, there is a shortage of basic medicines and in many ICUs across the country there are simply no more beds. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro continues to oppose lockdowns and the infection rate is being driven by a variant called P.1 which emerged in Manaus, in northern Brazil, last year, and is thought to be much more contagious. Twice the number of people died last month than in any other month of the pandemic, and the upward trend is continuing. Another problem driving the high rates in children is a lack of testing. Marinho says that for children often the Covid diagnosis comes too late, when they are already seriously ill. "We have a serious problem detecting cases. We don't have enough tests for the general population, even fewer for children. Because there is a delay in the diagnosis, there is a delay in care for the child," she says. This is not just because there is little testing capacity, but also because it is easier to miss, or misdiagnose, the symptoms of children suffering from Covid-19, as the disease tends to present differently in younger people.  "A child has a lot more diarrhoea, a lot more abdominal pain, and chest pain, than the classic Covid picture. Because there is a delay in diagnosis, when the child arrives at the hospital they are in a serious condition and can end up complicating - and dying," she says. But it's also about poverty and access to health care. An observational study of 5,857 Covid-19 patients under the age of 20, carried out by Brazilian paediatricians led by Braian Sousa from the São Paolo school of medicine, identified both comorbidities and socioeconomic vulnerabilities as risk factors for the worst outcome of Covid-19 in children. Marinho agrees this is an important factor. "Most vulnerable are black children, and those from very poor families, as they have the most difficulty accessing help. These are the children most at risk of death." She says this is because crowded housing conditions make it impossible to socially distance when infected, and because poorer communities do not have access to a local ICU. These children are also at risk of malnutrition, which is "terrible for the immune response", Marinho says. When Covid payments stopped, millions were plunged back into poverty. "We went from 7 million to 21 million people below the poverty line in one year. So people are also going hungry. All of this is impacting mortality." Sousa says his study identifies certain risk groups among children that should be prioritised for vaccination. Currently, there are no vaccines available for children under 16 years of age.  Visits by relatives to children in ICU have been restricted since the beginning of the pandemic, for fear of infection. Dr Cinara Carneiro, an ICU doctor at Albert Sabin Children's Hospital, says this has been immensely challenging, not just because parents are a comfort to their children, but because they can also help in a clinical sense - they can tell when their child is in pain or in psychological distress and when they need soothing rather than medicating. And she says the parents' absence intensifies their own trauma when they hear their child's condition has deteriorated and they haven't been there to witness it. "It hurts to see a child dying without seeing their parents," says Dr Carneiro. In an attempt to improve the communication between parents and their children, staff at Albert Sabin hospital clubbed together to buy phones and tablets to facilitate video calls. Dr Carneiro says this has helped immensely. "We have made over 100 video calls between family members and patients. This contact has greatly reduced the stress." Scientists stress the risk of death in this age group is still "very low" - the current figures suggest only 0.58% of Brazil's 345,287 Covid deaths to date have been of 0-9 year olds - but that is more than 2,000 children. "The numbers are really scary," says Dr Carneiro. When to seek help While coronavirus is infectious to children, it is rarely serious. If your child is unwell it is likely to be a non-coronavirus illness, rather than coronavirus itself. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health advises parents seek urgent help if their child is: Becoming pale, mottled and feeling abnormally cold to the touch Has pauses in their breathing (apnoeas), has an irregular breathing pattern or starts grunting Has severe difficulty in breathing, becoming agitated or unresponsive Is going blue round the lips Has a fit/seizure Becomes extremely distressed (crying inconsolably despite distraction), confused, very lethargic (difficult to wake) or unresponsive Develops a rash that does not disappear with pressure (the 'Glass test') Has testicular pain, especially in teenage boys