SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – With soccer season in the country suspended until further notice, more than half of Brazil’s twenty top tier professional teams have made their stadiums available to health officials to be used as hospitals and health care centers, as authorities predict a surge in victims of the Covid-19 contagion.
“In this grim moment, I wanted to invite our great Red and Black nation to renew hope and work for better days. Let us take care of our elders, help those who need it most,” Rio de Janeiro’s Flamengo club president, Rodolfo Landim, wrote in a message to supporters.
The club announced last week that it was making available the Hélio Maurício gymnasium, at its Gávea neighborhood headquarters, as well as the renowned Maracanã stadium, so that health authorities can use them as needed in the fight against the coronavirus. The Flamengo gymnasium is located very near one of Rio’s largest public hospitals, Miguel Couto.
Soccer stadiums in São Paulo, Brazil’s biggest city and the one with the most Covid-19 victims (deaths and infected) will also be used for Covid-19 victims. Pacaembu municipal stadium, which houses the city’s Soccer Museum, said it would install beds for use as a field hospital to relieve pressure on the city’s hospitals. The 45,000-seat stadium is expected to house more than 200 beds for minor cases of COVID-19. The makeshift hospital should be ready in ten days.
Two other big soccer clubs were also lending a hand. Corinthians said it would make its Itaquerão stadium and its training headquarters available ‘so that the authorities can evaluate how they can be used to combat the spread of the disease’.
Traditional football giant Santos announced that a temporary health clinic would be set up in some of the lounges inside its Vila Belmiro stadium.
In Brazil’s capital, Brasília, the Mané Garrincha, will be used as a makeshift hospital.
In the Northeastern city of Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, the Frasqueirão stadium is also being prepped for possible victims.
In the Southern part of the country, in Curitiba, the Arena da Baixada has already been made available to public health agencies.
On March 15th, the Brazilian Football Confederation decided that all competitions organized by the entity that are in progress will be paralyzed; these include the Copa do Brasil, Brazilian Women’s Championships, Brazilian Under-17 Championship and Brazilian Under-20 Cup as well as the Copa do Nordeste and some state championships.
On Friday, March 20th, Brazil’s Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta predicted the virus would reach its peak in the country between April and June, anticipating a drop in COVID-19 infections starting in September.
Mandetta warned the health system in the country, with a population of 210 million people, could reach saturation by the end of April with hospitals beds all filled.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Brazil had more than 2433 confirmed cases, and 57 deaths.