Brazil health service in 'worst crisis in its history'

 Brazil is experiencing a historic collapse of its health service as intensive care units in hospitals run out of capacity, its leading health institute, Fiocruz, has warned.

Covid-19 units in all but two of Brazil's 27 states are at or above 80% capacity, according to Fiocruz.

In Rio Grande do Sul state there are no intensive care beds available at all.

The warning came as the country registered its highest daily death toll yet with 2,841 dying within 24 hours.

That drew a strong response from João Gabbardo, the head of Sao Paulo's Covid-19 emergency body.

Posting on Twitter, Mr Gabbardo said private hospitals had been requesting space in the public health system because of the demand for intensive care beds. "When he [Queiroga] takes over, he will face the worst numbers in the pandemic," Mr Gabbardo tweeted, adding: "Suggestion: do not take a stand against a national lockdown."

President Bolsonaro has consistently played down the dangers of the pandemic - last week telling people to "stop whining" about Covid-19.

Brazil has the second highest number of infections and deaths in the world, behind the US. In total, the country has registered more than 11.6 million infections and 282,000 deaths since the pandemic began.

The latest surge in cases has been attributed to the spread of highly contagious variants of the virus.

The government has also faced criticism for the slow rollout of vaccines. It is currently distributing the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Chinese-developed CoronaVac jabs and has placed orders for the Pfizer-BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson and Russian Sputnik V vaccines. So far about 4.6% of the population have received at least one dose.