SAO PAULO: Dozens of Covid-19 patients in the Amazon rainforest’s biggest city will be flown out of state as the local health system collapses, authorities announced on Thursday (Friday in Manila) as dwindling stocks of oxygen tanks meant some people were starting to die breathless at home.

Doctors in Manaus, a city of 2 million people, were choosing which patients to treat, and at least one of the city’s cemeteries asked mourners to line up to enter and bury their dead.