Brazil: Sao Paulo works to ease effects of virus crisis

While Sao Paulo shows an increasing spread of the new coronavirus, authorities and community organizations are working to cope with the effects of the pandemic.

The state of Sao Paulo this week registered an increasing number of deaths and confirmed cases in Brazil, while the country broke a new record of deaths on Thursday, 1,188 in 24 hours.

The regional government opened a new field hospital in Heliopolis, the city's largest favela, this week.

Heliopolis alone has at least 65 deaths by COVID-19, a number that the community leaders fears would increase in the next weeks.

As most of the favela's residents are informal workers and are suffering the economic effect of the pandemic, CUFA, a community organization representing several favelas, has been developing strategies to try to mitigate it.

CUFA on Friday distributed more than 600 kitchen gas containers to the population in need, Lohaina de Paula was one of them.

De Paula's stepfather contracted COVID-19 and was hospitalized, and her mother was in quarantine at home with symptoms of the new coronavirus.

Brazil has more than 21,000 COVID-19 deaths, making it the hardest-hit Latin American country, according to the records collected by Johns Hopkins University.

This week, Brazil became the country with the second-largest number of coronavirus infections in the world, registering more than 330,000 cases on Friday.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough, that clear up in two to three weeks.

For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and could lead to death.