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Brazil is likely to pass the awful mark of 500,000 COVID-related deaths in the next two days. Only the United States has a higher number of dead across the world.

Currently averaging 2,500 deaths a day, Brazil’s P1 variant has long been identified as a highly virulent cause for concern, prompting travel bans to most countries.

But researchers in Sao Paulo, one of the worst-hit cities in the country, say the P1 variant has started infecting and killing pregnant women and their unborn children in startling numbers.

Thais Ferreira de Lomes looks down at her three-month-old baby Ezequiel, who has just been released from hospital
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Thais Ferreira de Lomes and her three-month-old baby Ezequiel, who has just been released from hospital

Currently 42 pregnant women die every week from COVID-19; many more women are being intubated and their premature children delivered by caesarean section without consultation with obstetricians, according to medical researchers at the Brazilian Obstetric Observatory.

Dr Rossana Pulcineli Vieira Francisco from the observatory said: “The virus transmissibility is higher with this variant and I think the big problem is that the health system for maternal care in Brazil is very bad.

“In some states the patient starts treatment in one hospital, a general hospital, and when her condition starts to worsen, and she needs to deliver the baby, she will be transported while intubated because they’re not at the right hospital to do the delivery.”

This, she believes, is part of the reason Brazil is seeing a higher rate of maternal mortality.

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She says obstetricians and intensivists should be working together to find the right outcomes for mother and child, otherwise it will be very difficult to stop maternal mortality during COVID.

“I think we have more cases because of the variant, and because our maternal health system is very fragile, we have this result.”

Queueing for a COVID vaccine jab in Sao Paulo
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People queueing for a COVID vaccine jab in Sao Paulo, but overall rollout in Brazil is slow

I asked her if it’s a perfect storm.

“Yes”, she replied, “and I think our only chance to stop this is the vaccine.”

The data from her and her colleagues’ research reveals that last year 10 pregnant women were dying each week from COVID-19.

This year, with the emergence of the new variant, the new figure is more than 40 per week.

Poor medical care and facilities already contributed to a high death rate for pregnant women in Brazil of 55 per 100,000 women. In Britain the figure is just 9.7.

But Dr Francisco says their research so far indicates that with COVID-19 as a factor the new number could double to over 100 per 100,000 by the end of the year.

The high overall transmission of the P1 variant (it accounts for nine in 10 coronavirus cases in Sao Paulo) combined with an overwhelmed health service, puts pregnant women at extreme risk.

When her kidneys failed the doctors told Thais she wouldn’t live to see her third child
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When her kidneys failed the doctors told Thais she wouldn’t live to see her third child

The practice of intubating pregnant women and delivering the baby while the mother is in a highly stressed condition is criticised by the researchers as a “bad outcome” for both the mother and her child.

For their part, doctors working in overstretched public hospitals prioritise the life of the mother over the child and without extensive experience of intubating anyone, let alone pregnant women, they have little choice but to deliver the baby while saving the mother.

In Jardim Almeida Prado, a poor neighbourhood in the south of the city of Sao Paulo, Thais Ferreira de Lomes looks down at her tiny three-month-old baby Ezequiel, who has just been released from hospital.

Ezequiel was born 12 weeks prematurely, after Thais was intubated.

Previously fit and healthy, like most people, Thais and her family thought she was in no danger when the first symptoms of COVID developed, but they were wrong.

When her kidneys failed, the doctors said she wouldn’t live to see her third child.

She’s still scarred by her near-death experience – her uncle had died of COVID when she first got sick.

“It was great to come home, see my family, and know that God gave me the opportunity to live again,” she tearfully told me.

“Seeing so many people dying, so many people dying like my uncle died with COVID. Many people are dying with COVID.”

Even though she is over the worst of her experience, she is scared for her and her children’s futures, and worries Ezequiel might still get coronavirus.

“Even today I’m afraid because he’s tiny, he was born prematurely. I told my mother-in-law that it’s hard for me to look at him and not think that something might happen.”

Dr Patricia Sella, who treated Ezequiel, says the P1 variant is infecting young pregnant women like she hasn’t seen before
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Dr Patricia Sella, who treated Ezequiel, says the P1 variant is infecting young pregnant women like she hasn’t seen before

At the Graiau Hospital, the maternity ward and its premature babies section where Ezequiel was cared for, are currently free of COVID cases, but doctors and nurses have no expectation that it is going to stay this way – other hospitals in the city are still treating infants with COVID-19 and their sick mothers.

Dr Patricia Sella, the medical coordinator for gynaecology – and the doctor who treated baby Ezequiel – says she has no doubt that the P1 variant, sweeping across the country, is infecting young pregnant women like she hasn’t seen before.

“In 2021 we observed an increase in pregnant women affected by COVID, likely because of the new strain.

“In 2020, in our hospital mainly, we had a very small number of pregnant women with COVID, but this year we have at least one pregnant woman hospitalised with COVID every week,” she explained to me, standing in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit.

She puts this down to the high infection rate of the P1 variant.

“So, actually, I think that with the change in the strain, we saw that the inflammatory process, [and] the vasculitis caused by the virus is much greater, right, and that ended up changing, bringing it to pregnant women.

“[Pregnant women] already have decreased lung compliance due to the pregnancy itself and the evolution of the pregnancy. With the COVID infection, this ends up getting worse.

“What we observed is that this strain ended up infecting pregnant women who do not have any other pre-existing conditions, so they do not have hypertension, and do not have diabetes during pregnancy. We observed that there was an increase and an increase in severity of the cases.”

Douglas with his sons, Pedro, 5, and Bento, 3, and their sister, Maria Helena
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Douglas Silverio with his sons, Pedro, 5, and Bento, 3, and their sister, Maria Helena

In the middle-class suburb of Jardim America, Douglas Silverio proudly shows off the latest addition to his family, three-month-old Maria Helena.

She has two elder brothers Pedro, five, and Bento, three, who run around their home playing with toys while their grandmother prepares lunch.

She now lives with the family because her daughter and the children’s mother, Vanessa, is dead; killed by COVID-19.

Vanessa was just 33 when coronavirus struck.

Within five days she deteriorated and was intubated, and Maria Helena was delivered by caesarean section, coincidentally on her dad’s birthday.

Vanessa never recovered.

“I told my sons, ‘let’s say goodbye to her’.

“Pedro, who is five years old, cried too, and he said, ‘goodbye mother, you are going to heaven’.

“The youngest one did not understand what happened. And it was crazy, that was a crazy time, because we had prayed a lot for the baby, a lot of prayers from our family, but I was not ready to bury my wife in this process.”

Vanessa Silverio, 33, seen with husband Douglas, died from COVID while pregnant and her daughter was delivered by caesarean section
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Vanessa Silverio, 33, seen with husband Douglas, died from COVID while pregnant and her daughter was delivered by caesarean section

On the day Douglas held mass for his wife’s death, baby Maria Helena was released from hospital.

He wants everyone to fear COVID and to listen to the warnings about the disease.

“I miss my wife. And she was my friend, we had a lot of plans together.

“I get scared when I see on the streets some pregnant women without masks. I say to them please take care of yourself.”

The entire medical profession in Brazil now acknowledges that the only way to fight the virus and to stop the country being a petri dish for creating COVID-19 variants that will continue to threaten the world, is for the country’s vaccination programme to speed up and reach all members of society.

The rollout is currently very slow and so far has only started to include 56-year-olds in Sao Paulo.

Many in the profession directly blame the country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, for the country’s poor response to the pandemic.

He still refuses to take the vaccine, has continuously played down the danger of coronavirus and still discourages the use of face masks anywhere.

The identification of the virus as a specific threat to young pregnant women has set off the alarm bells here that COVID-19 variants are attacking younger and younger members of society, who were previously thought to be relatively safe from serious illness.

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Stock markets slump for second day running after Trump announces tariffs – in worst day for indexes since COVID

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Stock markets slump for second day running after Trump announces tariffs - in worst day for indexes since COVID

Worldwide stock markets have plummeted for the second day running as the fallout from Donald Trump’s global tariffs continues.

While European and Asian markets suffered notable falls, American indexes were the worst hit, with Wall Street closing to a sea of red on Friday following Thursday’s rout – the worst day in US markets since the COVID-19 pandemic.

As it happened: Worst week’s trading in five years

All three of the US’s major indexes were down by more than 5% at market close; The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 5.5%, the S&P 500 was 5.97% lower, and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 5.82%.

The Nasdaq was also 22% below its record-high set in December, which indicates a bear market.

Read more: What’s a bear market?

Ever since the US president announced the tariffs on Wednesday evening, analysts estimate that around $4.9trn (£3.8trn) has been wiped off the value of the global stock market.

More on Donald Trump

Mr Trump has remained unapologetic as the markets struggle, posting in all-caps on Truth Social before the markets closed that “only the weak will fail”.

The UK’s leading stock market, the FTSE 100, also suffered its worst daily drop in more than five years, closing 4.95% down, a level not seen since March 2020.

And the Japanese exchange Nikkei 225 dropped by 2.75% at end of trading, down 20% from its recent peak in July last year.

Pic: Reuters
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US indexes had the worst day of trading since the COVID-19 pandemic. Pic: Reuters

Trump holds trade deal talks – reports

It comes as a source told CNN that Mr Trump has been in discussions with Vietnamese, Indian and Israeli representatives to negotiate bespoke trade deals that could alleviate proposed tariffs on those countries before a deadline next week.

The source told the US broadcaster the talks were being held in advance of the reciprocal levies going into effect next week.

Vietnam faced one of the highest reciprocal tariffs announced by the US president this week, with 46% rates on imports. Israeli imports face a 17% rate, and Indian goods will be subject to 26% tariffs.

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Do Trump’s tariffs add up?

Read more:
Markets gave Trump a clear no-confidence vote
There were no winners from Trump’s tariff gameshow

China – hit with 34% tariffs on imported goods – has also announced it will issue its own levy of the same rate on US imports.

Mr Trump said China “played it wrong” and “panicked – the one thing they cannot afford to do” in another all-caps Truth Social post earlier on Friday.

Later, on Air Force One, the US president told reporters that “the beauty” of the tariffs is that they allow for negotiations, referencing talks with Chinese company ByteDance on the sale of social media app TikTok.

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Tariffs: Xi hits back at Trump

He said: “We have a situation with TikTok where China will probably say, ‘We’ll approve a deal, but will you do something on the tariffs?’

“The tariffs give us great power to negotiate. They always have.”

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Financial markets were always going to respond to Trump tariffs but they’re also battling with another problem

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Financial markets were always going to respond to Trump tariffs but they're also battling with another problem

Global financial markets gave a clear vote of no-confidence in President Trump’s economic policy.

The damage it will do is obvious: costs for companies will rise, hitting their earnings.

The consequences will ripple throughout the global economy, with economists now raising their expectations for a recession, not only in the US, but across the world.

Tariffs latest: FTSE 100 suffers biggest daily drop since COVID

Financial investors had been gradually re-calibrating their expectations of Donald Trump over the past few months.

Hopes that his actions may not match his rhetoric were dashed on Wednesday as he imposed sweeping tariffs on the US’ trading partners, ratcheting up protectionism to a level not seen in more than a century.

Markets were always going to respond to that but they are also battling with another problem: the lack of certainty when it comes to Trump.

More on Donald Trump

He is a capricious figure and we can only guess his next move. Will he row back? How far is he willing to negotiate and offer concessions?

Read more:
There were no winners from Trump’s tariff gameshow
Trade war sparks ‘$2.2trn’ global market sell-off

These are massive unknowns, which are piled on to uncertainty about how countries will respond.

China has already retaliated and Europe has indicated it will go further.

That will compound the problems for the global economy and undoubtedly send shivers through the markets.

Much is yet to be determined, but if there’s one thing markets hate, it’s uncertainty.

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Court confirms sacking of South Korean president who declared martial law

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Court confirms sacking of South Korean president who declared martial law

South Korea’s constitutional court has confirmed the dismissal of President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was impeached in December after declaring martial law.

His decision to send troops onto the streets led to the country’s worst political crisis in decades.

The court ruled to uphold the impeachment saying the conservative leader “violated his duty as commander-in-chief by mobilising troops” when he declared martial law.

The president was also said to have taken actions “beyond the powers provided in the constitution”.

Demonstrators who stayed overnight near the constitutional court wait for the start of a rally calling for the president to step down. Pic: AP
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Demonstrators stayed overnight near the constitutional court. Pic: AP

Supporters and opponents of the president gathered in their thousands in central Seoul as they awaited the ruling.

The 64-year-old shocked MPs, the public and international allies in early December when he declared martial law, meaning all existing laws regarding civilians were suspended in place of military law.

Read more from Sky News:
Highs and lows of Five-Year Keir
MP tells Sky News she was targeted online by Tate brothers

More on South Korea

The Constitutional Court is under heavy police security guard ahead of the announcement of the impeachment trial. Pic: AP
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The court was under heavy police security guard ahead of the announcement. Pic: AP

After suddenly declaring martial law, Mr Yoon sent hundreds of soldiers and police officers to the National Assembly.

He has argued that he sought to maintain order, but some senior military and police officers sent there have told hearings and investigators that Mr Yoon ordered them to drag out politicians to prevent an assembly vote on his decree.

His presidential powers were suspended when the opposition-dominated assembly voted to impeach him on 14 December, accusing him of rebellion.

The unanimous verdict to uphold parliament’s impeachment and remove Mr Yoon from office required the support of at least six of the court’s eight justices.

South Korea must hold a national election within two months to find a new leader.

Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, is the early favourite to become the country’s next president, according to surveys.

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