8007 Covid in the Amazon – Timecoded Script

 

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- Reporter (VO): Dia Blanco, white day, as they say in Manaus. It's when the rain persists and the flood threatens. As if the inhabitants still needed that. As the virus continues to spread.

 

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Text on screen: Manaus, State of Amazonas

 

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Reporter (VO): Manaus is now the capital of the COVID-19 epidemic with record-breaking morbidity rates. Up to 200 deaths per day in January.

 

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Title Card: Covid in the Amazon

 

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- Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE) : Here's the line for the vaccination. We're in the second wave which is much worse than the first - it's catastrophic on every level.

 

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Lower Third: Silvio Cavuscens

Co-Founder of SECOYA, NGO

 

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- Reporter (VO): For 45 years, Silvio's been at the bedside of Amazonia's native people. Fragile peoples to whom this Swiss man from Geneva has dedicated his life.

 

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Reporter (VO): This morning he came to visit a emergency health center set up by members of indigenous communities in the suburbs of Manaus.

 

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- Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): How are you doing?

 

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- (DIALOGUE): We improvised a little bit as you can see.

 

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- Nurse (DIALOGUE): We're going to boost the saturation of oxygen. You have to push through the nostril and expel the air through the mouth.

 

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- Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): Lucas, this lady, how long has she been sick?

 

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-Man 1 (DIALOGUE) : She's been here for a week.

 

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-Man 2 (DIALOGUE) : She's had antibiotics, but we can't send her home because she needs oxygen.

 

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- Reporter (VO): Thirty indigenous people came to settle down on this earth on the edge of town to get a job. These are vulnerable and often neglected populations.

 

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Reporter (VO): Miqueias, 25 years old, the head of the neighborhood, took over from his father, who died of the virus a few months ago.

 

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Lower Third: Miqueias Kokoma

Indigenous Chief

 

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- Miqueias Kokoma (DIALOGUE) : They're much better off here.

 

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Miqueias Kokoma (DIALOGUE) : It's worse to send them to the hospital... because they're going to intubate them but without oxygen, they'll die.

 

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-Man 2 (DIALOGUE) : See, there's nothing left. It doesn't even move when you twist it.

 

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- Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): They thought they still had an oxygen reserve but they don't.

 

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Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): These cylinders are the last ones they had. It's dramatic throughout the region for indigenous peoples.

 

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Lower Third: Silvio Cavuscens

Co-Founder of SECOYA, NGO

 

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Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): The luck here is that we're just on the outskirts of Manaus but a little bit further out they are totally abandoned, without communication or any kind of transportation or healthcare.

 

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- Reporter (VO): When they live outside of their traditional lands, the natives lose their customary status to the state.

 

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Lower Third: Miqueias Kokoma

Indigenous Chief

 

 

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- Miqueias Kokoma (DIALOGUE) : People need to know what's going on. Just today, we have had 16 positive cases.

 

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- Reporter (VO): At the edge of the cities, many find themselves marginalized. This is what Miqueias denounces on social networks, hoping the authorities of the country will react.

 

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Reporter (VO): A study published in the medical review "Science" claimed that the city had reached collective immunity in October.

 

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Reporter (VO): And yet, for the past few weeks, it's facing a resurgence of new cases. This seems linked to the appearance of a so-called "Amazonian" variant. More powerful, more contagious.

 

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Reporter (VO): It's hard to say, but it's sowing chaos in hospitals and plunging the families of the victims in disarray.

                                                          

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Lower Third: Andre

Close to a Patient

 

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- Andre (DIALOGUE) : We lost my mother-in-law five days ago. We buried a loved one another day and the next day, my father went into the hospital. And potentially we're gonna bury him too. That's the situation.

 

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- Reporter (VO): Saturated with patients, hospitals appeal to the absent state. So we turn to God. This pastor comes every morning to pray with his people.

 

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-Pastor (DIALOGUE) : My God, blow the wind of life on her, in the name of Jesus.

 

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Pastor (DIALOGUE) : Give her the strength to recover by the will of the Holy Spirit.

 

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- Reporter (VO): 90% of infections from the second wave are due to the new variant. Silvio is all the more worried about it. He came to get some news from friend of his who is a nurse. It's not good.

 

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- Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): I see people die, I lose colleagues, neighbors. Looks like it's getting worse and worse, What do you think?

 

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Lower Third: Elayne Galvao

Nurse

 

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- Elayne Galvao (DIALOGUE) : What we know is that this new variant is more lethal. And the problem is that people don't respect recommendations from the health authorities enough. Look at this video, that day was chaos.

 

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- Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): Where was it?

 

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- Elayne Galvao (DIALOGUE) : In our unit. When the oxygen reserves were completely out. Relatives went to buy oxygen cylinders themselves to try and save those who were hospitalized.

 

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Elayne Galvao (DIALOGUE) : Look at this. I felt goosebumps all over. I felt so much anguish. It was awful. There was nothing we could do.

 

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- Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): The town wasn't shut down. There was an attempt to close the shops, but it didn't work. Now we pay the consequences.

 

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Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): No public policy, the public didn't play along.

 

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- Reporter (VO): With his friend Yura, Silvio reaches another indigenous neighborhood, where the virus infected residents for the second time.

 

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- Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): Hello, how are you?

 

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Lower Third: Eliane

28 years old

Infected for the second time

 

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- Eliane (DIALOGUE) : I still have a high fever, sometimes I wake up shaking. I still have a headache, I'm sick to my stomach and I'm exhausted. When my husband gets home from work, I no longer have the strength to make him coffee.

 

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- Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): Are you still on medication?

 

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- Eliane (DIALOGUE) : Yes, and traditional herbal teas too.

 

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- Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): In Yura's home village, there are over 900 of them. They live in a small town on the border with Peru. They're uncared for.

 

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Lower Third: Silvio Cavuscens

Co-Founder of SECOYA, NGO

 

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Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): If those who live near the city don't have proper healthcare imagine the natives who live on their land, more than 1,000 km from the town hall. There's no care whatsoever. It's every man for himself.

 

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- Reporter (VO): Every man for himself, or when the drugs run out. Back to traditional methods.

 

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-Claudia Bare (DIALOGUE) : This, for example, cinnamon, this helps to calm patients who are in a serious condition.

 

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- Reporter (VO): Herbal remedies medicinal products help relieve or strengthen the immune system.

 

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Reporter (VO): These ethnic Baré and Sateré women have lost nothing of the know-how of their ancestors nor the solidarity in the face of adversity.

 

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Reporter (VO): In these boxes, hygienic equipment that the associations hope ship in a few days to remote villages upriver.

 

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-Clarice (DIALOGUE) : Silvio, I also have these masks that you can send to the chiefs.

 

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- Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): It's important because when they go to the city, they don't have masks.

 

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-Clarice (DIALOGUE) : And we also have oral hygiene kits for children.

 

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- Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): We'll hand them out in the village, thank you very much.

 

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Lower Third: Clarice Duhigo

President of AMARN

 

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-Clarice Duhigo (DIALOGUE) : Our fear is that the virus could affect peoples who only have a few members left. If they die, it's a whole ethnic group that's dying out.

 

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- Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): It's a good thing there's the Indian movement. There's this solidarity between peoples. And this friendship that unites people. They're in the same boat, are facing the same challenges.

 

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- Reporter (VO): On the Rio Negro, a few rare boats provide a vital link with other communities isolated upriver.

 

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Reporter (VO): Normally, Silvio makes this trip. Since the pandemic he has forbidden himself for fear of bringing the virus to the heart of populations like the Yanomamis. Some groups have never had contact with the outside world.

 

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- Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): Before contact occurs with the indigenous peoples, these people were capable to provide for themselves. The contact brought a lot of pain.

 

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Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): It's brought diseases, viruses, unknown syndromes that they've suffered from a lot. A simple cold can turn into pneumonia. A child is so fragile that he may die from it.

 

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Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): The infant mortality rate among indigenous peoples is five times higher than the normal population.

 

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Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): I'm starting to miss them. Seriously.

 

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Silvio Cavuscens (DIALOGUE): We miss our Yanomamis friends. We're quite close to them, you know we're trying to build a future with them. We miss the meetings, discussing strategies, looking for solutions. And build a future for these people.

 

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- Reporter (VO): He'll remain at the dock for the sake of 26,000 Yanomamis and dozens of other groups that form the native communities of Amazonia.