this month has triggered looting and violence in the country’s two most populous provinces amid a record wave of Covid-19 infections.
Why was Jacob Zuma arrested?
Mr. Zuma was president of South Africa from 2009 until 2018, a time when alleged corruption escalated in government and the ruling African National Congress. After he resigned, a government-mandated commission started investigating some of these allegations, but Mr. Zuma repeatedly refused to testify, despite an order to do so from South Africa’s Constitutional Court. On June 29, the same court sentenced Mr. Zuma to 15 months in prison for contempt of court and he was arrested the following week.
How widespread are the riots in South Africa?
Most of the violence and looting has been concentrated in Mr. Zuma’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, where South Africa’s economic capital Johannesburg and political capital Pretoria are located. Mobs have targeted shopping malls, factories and warehouses, many of them in impoverished townships, where residents have been hit hard by three brutal waves of Covid-19 infections and government-imposed lockdowns. Dozens of people have lost their lives. Traffic on the highway connecting the important port of Durban with Johannesburg—one of South Africa’s busiest transport routes—has also been interrupted. That has led to concerns over shortages of food and other essentials and could cause disruptions to exports from some of the country’s agricultural hubs and trade with other African economies as far afield as the Democratic Republic of Congo. On Thursday, relative calm returned to Johannesburg and police minister
Bheki Cele
said the expanding military deployment would help resolve the still volatile situation in KwaZulu-Natal. Some locals have formed vigilante groups to protect their communities. Thousands of South African volunteers returned to littered streets and destroyed shopping centers to begin cleaning-up the damage.
South Africa is facing unrest on a scale that has been rarely seen since white-minority rule ended in 1994. Here’s how one political event exposed deep-seated inequalities that have increased during the pandemic. Photo: Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images
How has President Cyril Ramaphosa responded?
Mr. Zuma’s arrest was initially seen as a victory for his successor, Mr. Ramaphosa, who has pledged to clean up South Africa’s government and the ruling ANC. But the escalating unrest has also drawn attention to continued factional fighting within the former liberation movement, where Mr. Zuma still commands support. On Monday, Mr. Ramaphosa deployed the army to back up overwhelmed police and other law-enforcement agencies, and on Thursday he called up all military reservists in a bid to muzzle the rioting that has stoked fears of food and other shortages. He has called on South Africans not to join the violence and looting, which he says will further damage the economy and delay the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
Is there a link between the unrest and the coronavirus pandemic?
South Africa has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. It is currently in the middle of a third wave of Covid-19 infections, which has already surpassed the country’s two previous waves. Only around 2.5% of its 60 million people have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, so many are continuing to get sick and die. Government lockdowns that were supposed to stem transmission of the virus pushed the economy into its deepest recession on record last year, leading to increased hunger and poverty, and driving up an unemployment rate that stood at 33% at the end of March. Many of the looters say they are stealing to help provide for their families and to put pressure on a government that has failed to provide for them. “Politics was the trigger but the core issue here is the socio-economic grievances and frustration with the state,” said Ryan Cummings, Director of Signal Risk, a Cape Town-based risk consultancy.
A policeman guarded a group of suspected looters at a Johannesburg shopping center on Tuesday.
Photo:
James Oatway/Getty Images
Write to Gabriele Steinhauser at gabriele.steinhauser@wsj.com
With ransomware attacks on the rise—and compromised passwords to blame for some of the hackings—there’s no better time to review your personal security practices.
It all starts with how you create and store passwords.
You may have read a thing or two about password managers, perhaps in my previous column on the subject.
This software can create strong randomized passwords, then remember them for you, and they can auto-fill credentials, simplifying the login process. Having unique passwords is critical to your online security: Around 25% of security breaches in 2020 involved the use of stolen usernames and passwords, according to a Verizon report published in May.
WASHINGTON—A complex international corporate tax deal that took years to hammer out soon faces one of its toughest tests: the U.S. Congress.
The Group of 20 major economies backed the plan this weekend in Venice, Italy, following the earlier endorsement from a broader 130-country group. The plan, aimed at limiting corporate tax avoidance, would revamp longstanding international rules and is crucial to President Biden’s plans to raise corporate taxes.
“The world is ready to end the global race to the bottom on corporate taxation, and there’s broad consensus about how to do it,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.
As detailed negotiations continue, other countries will look to see if U.S. lawmakers implement a minimum corporate tax of at least 15% and embrace new rules for dividing the power to tax the largest companies. Congress will stare back, monitoring how quickly other countries create minimum taxes and remove unilateral taxes on digital companies that have drawn bipartisan U.S. opposition.
“The rest of the world is very aware that the administration cannot bind Congress,” said Chip Harter, the Trump administration’s lead international tax negotiator, who is now at PwC LLP. “They are watching very closely.”
Google have privately warned the Hong Kong government that they could stop offering their services in the city if authorities proceed with planned changes to data-protection laws that could make them liable for the malicious sharing of individuals’ information online.
A letter sent by an industry group that includes the internet firms said companies are concerned that the planned rules to address doxing could put their staff at risk of criminal investigations or prosecutions related to what the firms’ users post online. Doxing refers to the practice of putting people’s personal information online so they can be harassed by others.
Hong Kong’s Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau in May proposed amendments to the city’s data-protection laws that it said were needed to combat doxing, a practice that was prevalent during 2019 protests in the city. The proposals call for punishments of up to 1 million Hong Kong dollars, the equivalent of about $128,800, and up to five years’ imprisonment.
“The only way to avoid these sanctions for technology companies would be to refrain from investing and offering the services in Hong Kong,” said the previously unreported June 25 letter from the Singapore-based Asia Internet Coalition, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Tensions have emerged between some of the U.S.’s most powerful firms and Hong Kong authorities as Beijing exerts increasing control over the city and clamps down on political dissent. The American firms and other tech companies last year said they were suspending the processing of requests from Hong Kong law-enforcement agencies following China’s imposition of a national security law on the city.
Jeff Paine, the Asia Internet Coalition’s managing director, in the letter to Hong Kong’s Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, said that while his group and its members are opposed to doxing, the vague wording in the proposed amendments could mean the firms and their staff based locally could be subject to criminal investigations and prosecution for doxing offenses by their users.
That would represent a “completely disproportionate and unnecessary response,” the letter said. The letter also noted that the proposed amendments could curtail free expression and criminalize even “innocent acts of sharing information online.”
The Coalition suggested that a more clearly defined scope to violations be considered and requested a videoconference to discuss the situation.
A spokeswoman for the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data acknowledged that the office had received the letter. She said new rules were needed to address doxing, which “has tested the limits of morality and the law.”
The government has handled thousands of doxing-related cases since 2019, and surveys of the public and organizations show strong support for added measures to curb the practice, she said. Police officers and opposition figures were doxed heavily during months of pro-democracy protests in 2019.
“The amendments will not have any bearing on free speech,” which is enshrined in law, and the scope of offenses will be clearly set out in the amendments, the spokeswoman said. The government “strongly rebuts any suggestion that the amendments may in any way affect foreign investment in Hong Kong,” she said.
Representatives for Facebook, Twitter and Google declined to comment on the letter beyond acknowledging that the Coalition had sent it. The companies don’t disclose the number of employees they have in Hong Kong, but they likely employ at least 100 staff combined, analysts estimate.
China’s crackdown on dissent since it imposed a national security law a year ago has driven many people in Hong Kong off social media or to self-censor their posts following a spate of arrests over online remarks.
While Hong Kong’s population of about 7.5 million means it isn’t a major market in terms of its user base, foreign firms often cite the free flow of information in Hong Kong as a key factor for being located in the financial hub.
The letter from the tech giants comes as global companies increasingly consider whether to leave the financial center for cities offering more hospitable business climates.
The anti-doxing amendments will be put before the city’s Legislative Council and a bill is expected to be approved by the end of this legislative year, said Paul Haswell, Hong Kong-based head of the technology, media, and telecom law practice at global law firm Pinsent Masons.
The tech firms’ concerns about the proposed rules are legitimate, Mr. Haswell said. Depending on the wording of the legislation, technology companies headquartered outside Hong Kong, but with operations in the city, could see their staff here held responsible for what people posted, he said.
A broad reading of the rules could suggest that even an unflattering photo of a person taken in public, or of a police officer’s face on the basis that this would constitute personal data, could run afoul of the proposed amendments if posted with malice or an intention to cause harm, he said.
“If not managed with common sense,” the new rules “could make it potentially a risk to post anything relating to another individual on the internet,” he said.
Corrections & Amplifications Doxing was prevalent during protests in Hong Kong in 2019. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said the year was 2109. (Corrected on July 5)
The Manhattan district attorney’s office is expected to charge the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer with tax-related crimes on Thursday, people familiar with the matter said, which would mark the first criminal charges against the former president’s company since prosecutors began investigating it three years ago.
The charges against the Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg, the company’s longtime chief financial officer, are a blow to former President Donald Trump, who has fended off multiple criminal and civil probes during and after his presidency. Mr. Trump himself isn’t expected to be charged, his lawyer said. Mr. Weisselberg has rejected prosecutors’ attempts at gaining his cooperation, according to people familiar with the matter.
The defendants are expected to appear in court on Thursday afternoon, the people said.
The Trump Organization and Mr. Weisselberg are expected to face charges related to allegedly evading taxes on fringe benefits, the people said. For months, the Manhattan district attorney’s office and New York state attorney general’s office have been investigating whether Mr. Weisselberg and other employees illegally avoided paying taxes on perks—such as cars, apartments and private-school tuition—that they received from the Trump Organization.
If prosecutors could show the Trump Organization and its executives systematically avoided paying taxes, they could file more serious charges alleging a scheme, lawyers said.
DUBAI—A schism in Jordan’s ruling royal family burst into the open on Saturday, with the reigning monarch’s younger brother saying he had been effectively placed under house arrest and state media reporting that senior officials had been detained as part of security investigations.
In a video broadcast on BBC, Prince Hamzah bin Hussein, decried efforts to silence him and criticized the government of his brother, King Abdullah, an important U.S. ally, saying, “This country has become stymied in corruption, in nepotism and in misrule.”
The prince—who was removed as crown prince, a position that put him next in line for the throne, by King Abdullah in 2004—said a number of his friends had been arrested and that he was told not to leave his home. He said his security detail had been removed and his internet and phone lines cut.
More than 20 people have been taken into custody so far, mostly close allies of the prince, according to two senior Arab envoys based in Jordan and another person familiar with the matter. Jordan’s state-run Petra news agency quoted the head of the country’s military joint chiefs of staff as saying the people arrested were being held as part of “joint comprehensive investigations undertaken by the security forces.”
Jordanian authorities told diplomats that they were investigating a foreign-backed plot to destabilize the country, these people said. In his video, Prince Hamzah said there was no such plot.
FLUSHING, N.Y.—Before sunset Monday, a few dozen Asian-Americans outfitted in neon vests and jackets combed the streets of this New York City neighborhood.
They weren’t police officers. They were students, retail workers and retirees equipped with little more than a cellphone in the event they came across someone being harassed or attacked. Their mission: to stop would-be attackers from hurting other Asians, whether it be by calling the police for help or stepping in themselves.
“It’s made me feel sick,” said volunteer Wan Chen, 37, of the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes around the country. “So this is the time we need to speak up and try our best to help. If anyone tries to do anything, maybe they’ll think twice.”
Volunteer groups such as this one have sprung up around the U.S., patrolling the streets of Asian communities from New York City to Oakland, Calif. They have multiple goals: to escort individuals worried about their safety where they need to go, check in on community members, and if needed, intervene if they see someone being harassed.
Cities around the country have seen upticks in hate crimes against Asians since the start of the pandemic. One analysis conducted by researchers at California State University, San Bernardino, found hate crimes targeting Asians in 16 of the largest U.S. cities increased 149% between 2019 and 2020. Over the same period, overall reports of hate crimes declined by 7%, the researchers found.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia—Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels said they attacked a major Saudi Arabian oil port on the Persian Gulf with drones and missiles on Sunday. Saudi authorities said the strike caused no casualties or damage.
The Saudi Energy Ministry said an assault “coming from the sea” had targeted petroleum tanks at the Ras Tanura port. It condemned what it called “repeated acts of sabotage and hostility” targeting energy supplies to the world.
“All indications point to Iran,” said an adviser to the Saudi royal court who said he was briefed on the matter. He said it wasn’t clear whether the origin was Iran or Iraq but that it hadn’t come from the direction of Yemen.
Iranian officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. An Iraqi official said he was unaware of any connection between his country and the attack.
Oil prices rose after the market opened Sunday evening in New York following the attack. Brent crude, the global gauge of oil prices, added more than 2.5% and rose above $71 a barrel. Prices have surged to their highest level since May 2019, lifted by rising demand as the global economy reopens from shutdowns designed to stop the coronavirus and supply curtailments around the world.
In 2019, a drone and missile attack on the heart of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry temporarily shut down half the kingdom’s crude production. At the time, the Houthis claimed responsibility, but the U.S. said the attack was launched from Iraq or Iran, which denied the accusations.
Yahya Saree, spokesman for Houthi forces fighting the Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen, said the group on Sunday used 10 drones and a ballistic missile in an attack on Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, as well as four drones and six missiles aimed at the southern Saudi regions of Asir and Jazan.
The Houthis have stepped up aerial attacks on Saudi Arabia following the inauguration in January of President Biden, who has pledged to end the six-year-old civil war in Yemen and recalibrate Washington’s relationship with Riyadh.
The Biden administration has said it wants to re-enter the 2015 nuclear deal and then negotiate a deeper, broader agreement with Tehran that also addresses Iran’s military posture and activities in the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia is leading a military coalition that intervened in the conflict in Yemen, which now faces one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The coalition launched a new round of airstrikes on the capital Sanaa earlier Sunday, warning that targeting civilians in Saudi Arabia was “a red line.”
Hussein Nasser, a father of two living in Sanaa, said the coalition bombardment of a nearby military base shattered the windows in dozens of homes in his neighborhood, injuring several people. “Five airstrikes at the same time while people and their kids were having lunch,” he said.
Following the incident at Ras Tanura, the port was operating as normal, according to several shipping sources. “Loadings are continuing normally,” said a manager at a shipping agency there who declined to be named. He wasn’t aware of any distribution center being hit.
Ras Tanura is the site of Saudi Aramco’s oldest and largest oil refinery and the world’s biggest offshore oil loading facility. The 550,000 barrel-a-day refinery supplies over a quarter of the kingdom’s fuel supply.
Shrapnel from a ballistic missile, which the Houthis said they had fired at military targets in nearby Dammam, fell near Aramco’s residential area in neighboring Dhahran, the Saudi statement said.
An Aramco employee living in the area said he saw two projectiles intercepted overhead by Saudi air defenses, which rely heavily on U.S. Patriot antimissile systems. Nearby residents reported the windows of their homes had trembled or even shattered from the blasts.
Images shared on social media showed bright blasts of light in the sky above Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province and later a plume of white smoke.
—Benoit Faucon, Saleh al-Batati and Amrith Ramkumar contributed to this article.
Write to Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com and Stephen Kalin at stephen.kalin@wsj.com
said he asked her if she had a boyfriend, called her sweetheart, touched her on her lower back at a reception and once kissed her hand when she rose from her desk.
Ana Liss, now 35 years old, served as a policy and operations aide to Mr. Cuomo between 2013 and 2015. She said the actions by Mr. Cuomo were unsolicited and occurred in the first year while she sat at her desk, which was near his office in the Executive Chamber of the New York State Capitol in Albany.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Ms. Liss said she initially perceived Mr. Cuomo’s conduct as harmless flirtations. Over time, she said, she has come to see it as patronizing, and she added it diminished her from an educated professional to “just a skirt.”
“It’s not appropriate, really, in any setting,” she said.
In response to questions about Ms. Liss, Rich Azzopardi, a senior adviser to Mr. Cuomo said Saturday: “Reporters and photographers have covered the governor for 14 years watching him kiss men and women and posing for pictures. At the public open-house mansion reception, there are hundreds of people, and he poses for hundreds of pictures. That’s what people in politics do.”
At his last public appearance on Wednesday, Mr. Cuomo said this behavior was customary for him.
“I understand that sensitivities have changed and behavior has changed, and I get it. And I’m going to learn from it,” he said.
Ana Liss displays a pin she earned while working in the governor’s office.
Photo:
libby march for The Wall Street Journal
Ms. Liss is the third former female aide to accuse Mr. Cuomo of inappropriate behavior in the workplace. The two other former aides have said he sexually harassed them. Mr. Cuomo has apologized for making people uncomfortable. He has said he never touched anyone inappropriately.
“It was unintentional, and I truly and deeply apologize for it,” he said Wednesday. “I feel awful about it and, frankly, I am embarrassed.”
Ms. Liss and other current and former administration officials said the governor regularly asked them about their dating lives, touched them and commented about their physical appearance. Longtime staffers told some women they should wear high heels when the governor was in Albany, according to Ms. Liss and other former staffers. Mr. Azzopardi said no one was compelled to wear high heels.
The Journal spoke with more than 30 officials who either work or have worked for Mr. Cuomo during his 10 years as governor. All of those officials, who include current and former agency heads, described a high-pressure environment where seven-day workweeks were common.
Several people described the working environment as toxic. Many former staffers recalled the governor’s actions more endearingly. Once on Valentine’s Day, Mr. Cuomo had roses delivered to the female employees, they said. Two women who received the flowers said they appreciated the gesture.
When asked about the criticism of working conditions, Mr. Azzopardi said: “The people of this state elected the governor to represent them four times during the last 14 years, and they know he works day and night for them. There is no secret these are tough jobs, and the work is demanding, but we have a top-tier team with many employees who have been here for years, and many others who have left and returned.”
One former aide, 25-year-old Charlotte Bennett, recently said Mr. Cuomo asked about her sex life and whether she had relationships with older men.
Another former adviser, Lindsey Boylan, said in a Feb. 24 Medium post that Mr. Cuomo tried to kiss her on the lips in his office and, during a 2017 flight on his plane, suggested they play strip poker. A spokeswoman for Mr. Cuomo has said Ms. Boylan’s accusations are false.
The governor is facing mounting pressure over the accusations, as well as how the state handled Covid-19 in nursing homes. State Attorney General Letitia James is overseeing an investigation into the accusations by Mses. Bennett and Boylan. Federal prosecutors are interested in how the governor’s top advisers pushed to alter a Health Department report to include a lower tally of deaths in those facilities, people familiar with the matter said.
Republicans and an increasing number of Democrats have called for Mr. Cuomo’s resignation or impeachment, but senior Democratic state lawmakers are resisting until Ms. James’s review is complete.
Ms. Liss said she decided to come forward after Mses. Bennett and Boylan accused Mr. Cuomo of sexual harassment. Ms. Liss said the governor’s response to their accusations has been inadequate.
Ms. Liss won a competitive fellowship in 2013 and joined Mr. Cuomo’s team to work on economic-development programs. She already had a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and had been working at a business-development firm in Rochester. She said she was proud of her role in the Executive Chamber but was dismayed that the governor never asked her about her work, focusing instead on personal questions or her appearance.
Ana Liss keeps in her office a framed picture of her and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, taken at a 2014 reception, showing his arm around her waist.
Photo:
Libby March for The Wall Street Journal
Ms. Liss recalled working at a May 6, 2014, reception at the Executive Mansion in Albany, which is Mr. Cuomo’s official residence. Mr. Cuomo was in a living room on the north side of the mansion’s first floor and noticed Ms. Liss, she recalled.
“He came right over to me and he was like, ‘Hey, Sweetheart!’” she said.
She said the governor hugged her, kissed her on both cheeks and then wrapped his arm around her lower back and grabbed her waist. They turned to a photographer, who took a picture that shows Mr. Cuomo’s hand around her waist.
In the Medium post, Ms. Boylan described a similar encounter with the governor at a Jan. 6, 2016, event at Madison Square Garden. She said Mr. Cuomo stopped to talk with her after a speech, and she was soon informed by her boss that the governor had a crush on her.
“It was an uncomfortable but all-too-familiar feeling: the struggle to be taken seriously by a powerful man who tied my worth to my body and my appearance,” Ms. Boylan wrote.
Ms. Liss said she never made a formal complaint about the behavior of the governor or anyone else. She said she eventually asked for a transfer to another office.
Ms. Liss said her experience working for the governor prompted her to begin mental-health counseling in 2014. She said she drank heavily that year, and she left the Executive Chamber in 2015 to take a position at Cornell University as a corporate-relations manager. Ms. Liss now works as the director of the Department of Planning and Development for Monroe County in upstate New York.
The Journal interviewed two other Empire State Fellows who said they observed Ms. Liss drinking heavily and skipping social engagements when she worked for the governor.
Peter Walke, a fellow who now serves as Vermont’s environmental conservation commissioner, said in a recent interview that he noticed Ms. Liss became more withdrawn over time.
After the allegations by Mses. Boylan and Bennett, Mr. Walke contacted Ms. Liss. She relayed her own experiences to him, Mr. Walke said.
Ms. Liss said she was proud of the work she did during her time in Albany, and still keeps in her office that picture of her and Mr. Cuomo at the reception. She supports the policies he has enacted.
“I just wish—I wish that he took me seriously,” she said.
—Leslie Brody and Jim Oberman contributed to this article.
Write to Jimmy Vielkind at Jimmy.Vielkind@wsj.com, Deanna Paul at deanna.paul@wsj.com and Khadeeja Safdar at khadeeja.safdar@wsj.com
SÃO PAULO—Researchers and doctors are sounding the alarm over a new, more aggressive coronavirus strain from the Amazon area of Brazil, which they believe is responsible for a recent rise in deaths, as well as infections in younger people, in parts of South America.
Brazil’s daily death toll from the disease rose to its highest level yet this week, pushing the country’s total number of Covid-19 fatalities past a quarter of a million. On Tuesday, Brazil reported a record 1,641 Covid fatalities. Neighbor Peru is struggling to curb a second wave of infections.
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The new variant, known as P.1, is 1.4 to 2.2 times more contagious than versions of the virus previously found in Brazil, and 25% to 61% more capable of reinfecting people who had been infected by an earlier strain, according to a study released Tuesday.
With mass vaccination a long way off across the region, countries such as Brazil risk becoming a breeding ground for potent versions of the virus that could render current Covid-19 vaccines less effective, public-health specialists warned.
A more prolonged pandemic could also devastate the economies of countries such as Brazil, slowing growth and expanding the country’s already large debt pile as the government extends payouts to the poor, economists said.
“We’re facing a dramatic situation here—the health systems of many states in Brazil are already in collapse and others will be in the next few days,” said Eliseu Waldman, an epidemiologist at the University of São Paulo.
Healthcare workers checked arrivals at a field hospital in Manaus, Brazil, on Feb. 11.
Photo:
raphael alves/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Several doctors have reported a surge in younger patients in their Covid-19 wards, many in their 30s and 40s with no underlying health problems. In Peru, some doctors said patients are becoming seriously ill faster, just three or four days after the first symptoms emerged, compared with an average of nine to 14 days last year.
“The virus is behaving differently,” said Rosa Lopez, a doctor in the intensive-care unit at Lima’s Guillermo Almenara Irigoyen Hospital. “It’s really aggressive…the situation is very difficult, really terrible.”
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The Amazonian strain, P.1, emerged in the Brazilian city of Manaus late last year and quickly caught the attention of Brazilian and international scientists who raced to map its spread. The variant’s large number of mutations to the spike protein, which helps the virus penetrate cells, have caused particular concern.
“We’re in the worst moment. I wouldn’t be surprised if P.1 is all over Brazil by now,” said Felipe Naveca, a researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation who has studied the new strain. He estimated that Brazil is already home to hundreds of new Covid-19 variants, although P.1. is the most worrying so far, he said.
However, researchers are still at a loss as to why more young people appear to be falling ill and if P.1 is more deadly, or just more contagious.
“The recent epidemic in Manaus has strained the city’s healthcare system, leading to inadequate access to medical care,” wrote the authors of the P.1 study, which was led by Nuno Faria, a professor of virus evolution at Oxford University and Imperial College London.
People waited to refill empty oxygen cylinders on the southern outskirts of Lima, Peru, on Feb. 25.
“We therefore cannot determine whether the estimated increase in relative mortality risk is due to P.1 infection, stresses on the Manaus healthcare system, or both,” they wrote.
A study led by Mr. Naveca released last week showed that in some cases the P.1 strain carried a viral load about 10 times higher than the initial versions of the virus that were circulating in Brazil for most of the pandemic. But the group of international scientists led by Mr. Faria concluded that it wasn’t possible to determine whether P.1 infection is associated with increased viral loads until detailed clinical investigations are conducted.
Researchers in South Africa struggled with the same questions when studying another new variant, B.1.351. Doctors there also reported a rise in hospitalizations and deaths of younger patients, but researchers concluded that more younger people were getting seriously ill because more people were being infected overall. The likelihood of younger people dying increased, they said, because hospitals were overwhelmed, not because the variant itself was more deadly.
Another possible explanation for the rise in younger patients is that the virus has already moved its way through many older hosts who passed away, said Francisco Cardoso, an infectious-disease specialist at the Emílio Ribas hospital in São Paulo.
Latin America has been one of the world’s Covid-19 hot spots since the pandemic began, but in recent days doctors in Brazil have grown ever more desperate, describing scenes of horror across the country. While the new strain is largely to blame, so too is a lack of preparation and prevention by the region’s governments, said public-health specialists.
Hospitals are operating at ICU occupancy rates above 80% in almost two-thirds of Brazilian states. After scores of patients suffocated to death in Manaus earlier this year when hospitals ran out of oxygen, prosecutors are investigating reports from another Amazonian city that intubated patients were tied to their beds following a shortage of sedatives.
In Peru, where the government has detected the P.1 strain, hospitals were quickly pushed beyond capacity as infections surged in January after one of the world’s worst outbreaks last year. Doctors are now choosing among dozens of patients when an ICU bed opens up, while Chile is donating lifesaving oxygen amid acute shortages.
The scenes come as the U.S., the U.K. and Israel celebrate falling rates of infection amid mass vaccination campaigns, evidence of a widening immunity gap between rich and poorer nations. While more than 15% of people in the U.S. have received a Covid-19 shot, Brazil has administered vaccines to only 3% of its population. Peru and Colombia have vaccinated less than 1%.
If Latin America doesn’t find a way to speed up its vaccination campaigns, other countries such as Colombia and Bolivia that have seen recent slowdowns in new infections could also fall victim to the new variant, infectious-disease specialists said.
The longer the disease is left to fester in countries such as Brazil, the greater the chance that new variants will emerge that reduce the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines, thereby also posing a threat to nations that have already immunized their populations.
“Unless everyone in the world gets the vaccine soon, none of us will be protected,” said Patricia Garcia, a former Peruvian health minister and epidemiologist. “It will never stop.”
Cesar Palacios, a 44-year-old pediatrician in Peru’s northern city of Piura, lost his parents and younger sister to the disease earlier this year. He spent 10 days on a ventilator after getting sick himself, the illness advancing quickly as his blood-oxygen levels fell into dangerous territory, at 86% just a day after his first symptom. A few days later he was in an ICU.
“When you are going to be put on a mechanical ventilator, you think, am I going to live? Am I going to die?” said Dr. Palacios. “I had no other option. I was so scared.”
While Peru has imposed a nighttime curfew in Lima and other states with high infections, Brazilian cities such as São Paulo and the capital, Brasília, have introduced tougher restrictions over recent days.
But many Brazilians have defied the rules, taking a cue from the country’s president. Right-wing leader Jair Bolsonaro has played down the disease and attacked state governors for imposing lockdowns, accusing them of destroying local businesses.
Military police in São Paulo raided about 50 establishments over the weekend that refused to comply, including a group of 190 elderly Brazilians holding a clandestine party.
—Luciana Magalhaes in São Paulo and Gabriele Steinhauser in Johannesburg contributed to this article.
As highly transmissible coronavirus variants sweep across the world, scientists are racing to understand why these new versions of the virus are spreading faster, and what this could mean for vaccine efforts. New research says the key may be the spike protein, which gives the coronavirus its unmistakable shape. Illustration: Nick Collingwood/WSJ
Write to Samantha Pearson at samantha.pearson@wsj.com and Ryan Dube at ryan.dube@dowjones.com
