According to Brazil's leading health institute, Fiocruz, the country's health system is collapsing at an unprecedented rate as intensive care unit in hospitals surpasses capacity. According to Fiocruz, Covid-19 units are at or above 80% capacity in all but two of Brazil's 27 states.

There are no intensive care beds available in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The alert was given because the nation was suffering its highest daily death toll in history, with 2,841 people dying in less than 24 hours. This is a significant increase from the previous high of 2,286 set on March 10th.

According to the study, this is the largest hospital and health-care system failure in Brazilian history.

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Health officials in Brazil's most populous province, So Paulo, have asked the new health minister to consider implementing a national lockdown after the state's death toll hit a new high on Tuesday. Marcelo Queiroga, who will be sworn in as health minister later on Wednesday, will be the fourth to take the responsibility since the pandemic began.

President Jair Bolsonaro, who has faced intense criticism for his treatment of the pandemic, was appointed on Monday. President Bolsonaro has publicly denounced quarantine measures proposed by state governors, claiming that the economic consequences will be much greater than the virus's symptoms.

Will there be a Lockdown?

Mr. Queiroga urged Brazilians to wear masks and wash their hands in a press conference on Tuesday. But He is not in favor of a lockout or even social distancing steps. Although "lockdowns were used in extreme cases," the cardiologist told CNN Brasil, "they cannot be a government policy." Joo Gabbardo, the head of Sao Paulo's Covid-19 emergency body, responded angrily to this.

Mr. Gabbardo said on Twitter that private hospitals had applied for space in the public health system because of the high demand for intensive care beds. If Queiroga takes over, he will be confronted with the worst figures in the pandemic," Mr. Gabbardo wrote on Twitter, adding a suggestion that one should not oppose a national lockout.

President Bolsonaro has repeatedly downplayed the pandemic's risks, urging people to "stop complaining" about Covid-19 just last week. Brazil, after the US, has the second largest number of diseases and deaths in the world. Since the pandemic started, the world has seen more than 11.6 million infections and 282,000 deaths. The transmission of highly infectious virus variants has been the reason for the recent spike in cases.

The government has also been mocked for its sluggish vaccine implementation. It has placed orders for the Pfizer-BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson, and Russian Sputnik V vaccines and is currently distributing the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Chinese-developed CoronaVac vaccines. Only 4.6 percent of the population has received just one dose so far.