Workers from the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health transfer a pregnant patient to a hospital in Santarem, Para state, Brazil, in July 2020.
Photographer: Tarso Sarraf/AFP/Getty Images
Covid Kills Pregnant and Post-Partum Brazilians, Leaving Orphans
The government has asked younger women to consider delaying pregnancy
It began with the elderly. When an Amazonian variant appeared, a broader range of Brazilians started dying. Then those in their 40s, 30s and even 20s succumbed. Now, in an even more chilling development — with possibly global implications — Covid is killing pregnant and post-partum Brazilians, leaving newborn orphans.
As the disease’s toll on the young surges, overwhelming hospitals, some 500 such deaths have occurred in the first four months of this year, according to a group that monitors mothers and babies in Brazil. That’s more than the toll of the previous nine months: some 30 a week, compared with 10.