Tom Phillips, the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, looks at the surge of infections in the Brazilian state of Amazonas that has left many hospitals without the most basic supplies and has prompted yet more protests against Bolsonaro

Rachel Humphreys talks to the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, Tom Phillips, about the Covid crisis in Brazil. A surge in infections linked to a new and seemingly more contagious variant has overwhelmed hospitals in Amazonas state, leaving many without the most basic supplies. Circumstances were so bleak that oxygen tankers were rushed over the border from Venezuela, the economically collapsed nation next door, with its leader, Nicolás Maduro, decrying what he called “Jair Bolsonaro’s public health disaster”.

Tom tells Rachel about the way the public have reacted to Bolsonaro and his government’s handling of this latest wave of infections. Inoculation began last Sunday, weeks after other Latin American countries such as Chile and Mexico. But Brazil, which has 212 million citizens, has so far secured only 6m doses of China’s CoronaVac shot and 2m of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine.

Protests take place across country at what many see as president’s shambolic Covid response

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Thousands of Brazilians have taken to the streets in their cars to demand Jair Bolsonaro’s impeachment as polls showed support for the far-right president slipping over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

On Saturday, as Brazil’s official Covid-19 death toll hit 216,000, leftwing and centrist protesters organised motorcade rallies in more than 20 state capitals, including Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte and Belém.

• State hopes to transfer at least 60 babies from neonatal units
• Air force evacuates coronavirus patients from Amazon city

Authorities in the Brazilian Amazon are reportedly racing to save dozens of premature babies after a surge in coronavirus cases caused a catastrophic breakdown in the oxygen supply to hospitals and clinics.

On Friday, CNN Brasil reported that the northern state of Amazonas was seeking to transfer at least 60 babies from neonatal units in its capital, Manaus, to hospitals elsewhere in the country.