Memorial in honor of Covid victims opens on Avenida Paulista; see photos

This Sunday afternoon (23), Avico (Association of Victims and Families of Victims of Covid-19) held an act in memory of the almost 700,000 dead from the disease in Brazil, on Avenida Paulista, in São Paulo.

The group inaugurated a memorial at number 1403 of the road. To represent the lives lost, hearts were painted on a panel of more than 20 meters that should be installed on the avenue. Family members also left messages and flowers in space.

“We can’t let this chapter of our history be forgotten so that a horror like the one we live is never repeated. We can’t let it fall into oblivion that the effects of this pandemic could be minimized and thousands of people, like my mother, could be alive if the appropriate preventive measures had been taken”, says Paola Falceta, president of Avico.

The initiative has the support of the project Eles Podem Estar Vivos, which was born as a documentary, but aims to become a permanent audiovisual production project for the memory of the victims of the pandemic.

Avico was founded in April 2021, in Porto Alegre, by Falceta, who is a social worker, and by lawyer Gustavo Bernardes.

Bernardes was hospitalized and intubated at the end of 2020 for treatment of the disease and suffered from serious sequelae caused by the coronavirus. Paola, on the other hand, was infected while caring for her mother, who died with complications from Covid.

The association currently has more than 1,800 family members of victims and survivors of Covid-19 in 24 states and works in partnership with entities, groups and social movements.

Brazil recorded, on Saturday (22), 84 deaths from Covid-19 and 6,742 cases of the disease. As a result, the country has lost 687,665 lives and 34,828,916 people infected with Sars-CoV-2 since the beginning of the pandemic.

The moving average of deaths is now 67 per day. In comparison with the data of two weeks ago, the average dropped 13%. The moving average of cases is now at 5,307 per day, a 14% decrease from 14 days ago.