Brazil expects a third wave of COVID-19 more lethal than previous ones

Other specialists assure that in Brazil. We cannot speak of waves, because never in the 16 months of the pandemic was the circulation of the virus stifled until deaths and infections were reduced to a minimum, as happened in European countries. This can be attributed to President Jair Bolsonaro and his campaign against quarantines for its economic damage.

In the dramatic months of March and April, when more than 4,000 were killed in a single day, nearly all governors reimposed non-essential service closures and nighttime curfews.

But as soon as the numbers began to fall, the measures were relaxed, according to the experts, prematurely, while the country of 212 million inhabitants approaches half a million deaths and has one of the highest mortality rates per 100,000 inhabitants of the world (more than 220).

According to the National Council of Health Secretaries (Conass), Brazil already adds 476,792 deaths and 17,037,129 infections from coronavirus. In the last 24 hours alone, the country registered 2,378 deaths and 52,911 infections from the virus, compared to 1,010 deaths and 37,156 cases recorded the day before.

The authorities have explained that the figures are usually lower on weekends and Mondays due to the lack of personnel to collect the information, but they will increase again as of Tuesday.

The number of deaths has been falling slowly and progressively since it reached its peak on April 12, and currently Brazil has a daily average of 1,639 deaths in the last 7 days, after having reached over 3,000.

Despite the slight improvement in the figures, Brazil remains mired in one of the worst moments of the pandemic, in the midst of a vaccination process that continues at a slow pace, with just over 10% of the population vaccinated with the full scheme.

Concern about the health crisis has led political parties and various specialists to question the celebration of the Copa América in Brazil starting next Sunday, after the resignation of Argentina and Colombia, the original venues of the tournament.

The Copa América “is not a risk,” says the health minister

Despite the criticism, the Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, reiterated this Tuesday that the celebration of the America’s Cup “is not a risk” for the population, since the health security protocols developed for the event “are safe.”

Queiroga appeared before a Senate commission investigating possible government omissions and assured that the Copa América, which will begin in the country next Sunday, does not increase the health risk, as there will be “bubbles” for each delegation.

“The risk for the population is the same, with or without Copa”, because the 650 people that the delegations are estimated to add, including footballers, technicians and support personnel, “will be isolated” in their hotels and will only go out on buses ” controlled “to train and go to the stadiums where the games will be played, he said.

The minister pointed out that the same “protocol” will be applied to the nearly 2,000 journalists who, according to data from the Senate commission, have requested accreditation to cover the competition.

“I do not see risks from an epidemiological point of view,” insisted Queiroga, who pointed out that “the practice of sports is liberated” in Brazil, to the point that, for months, national and regional championships and dozens of matches of the Libertadores and the South American or the qualifiers for the Qatar 2022 World Cup.

He stressed that, in all these cases, as will happen in the Copa América, the matches are played “without an audience”, so “there will be no danger of crowds.”

He also reiterated that the soccer tournament will not imply an additional burden on the public health network, since the ten South American teams that will participate “have private insurance and will use the private system” if a medical emergency arises.

He also pointed out that “the vaccination of the players is not mandatory”, because if it were, “there could not be a championship”, since the immunization process takes a delay of at least two months.

Queiroga assured that the Copa América “is not an event of great proportions, like the Olympic Games,” and added that, despite the strong criticism that its dispute has generated in Brazil, one of the countries most affected by the pandemic in the world, “all biosafety protocols are safe.”

The plenary session of the Supreme Court of Brazil will judge from Thursday two appeals that ask for the suspension of the tournament. As reported by the court itself on Tuesday, the trial will take place virtually and the eleven members of the court will have a period of 24 hours to pronounce on the institution’s digital platforms, so the ruling would be known on Friday.

A more intense wave of infections

In its latest extraordinary bulletin, the Fiocruz research institute warned that the “relaxation” of the measures will lead to “an intensification of the pandemic” in the coming weeks.

Although the average number of deaths remains stable, the number of cases has tended to rise in most of the country in recent weeks.

“This process of maintaining high mortality rates, together with the increase in incidence rates, may have as a consequence a worsening of the health crisis,” warns Fiocruz.

The institution also warned on Friday that 12 of the 26 states and the Federal District have an increase in cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), the vast majority of which are the result of the coronavirus.

In Brazil, an unprecedented health catastrophe was normalized, and in most cases people live as if there were no pandemic, “José David Urbáez, a member of the Brazilian Society of Infectology, explained to AFP.

“That is why this third recrudescence is expected to be very intense, because you come out of a very high step and a very intense viral circulation that is going to become even more intense.”

An uncertain variant of COVID-19

Bolsonaro, who in another controversy decided to host the 2021 Copa América in Brazil, has been the subject of an investigation in the Senate for weeks for his chaotic management of the pandemic, in part due to the late start and slow progress of vaccination.

But last week, in a speech to the nation, Bolsonaro again promised that “all Brazilians” will be vaccinated in 2021, a goal questioned by experts.

And he once again boasted that, thanks to the fact that “he did not force anyone to stay at home”, Brazil was one of the countries in the world that “grew the most” in the first quarter (+ 1.2%).

For Mauro Sánchez, epidemiologist at the University of Brasilia (UnB), the intensity of the third onslaught of the pandemic will depend in part on the rate of vaccination.

“If the speed of immunization is less than the negative weight of the relaxation of social isolation measures, the third wave can be strong,” he explained to AFP.

To this must be added the uncertainty of the Delta variant, whose first cases already appeared in Brazil and its spread may be favored by the economic reopening.

“If it is well adapted as in India, with high transmissibility and at least virulence equal to the strains currently in circulation, it can cause a very large number of cases,” warns Sánchez.

The potential beneficial effects of mass vaccination were confirmed with a city of 45,000 inhabitants in the interior of Sao Paulo.

After vaccinating 95% of the adult population with the two doses, deaths from coronavirus fell by 95%, hospitalizations by 86% and symptomatic cases by 80%.

“With 75% of the target population immunized with the two doses of Coronavac, the pandemic was controlled in Serrana and that can be reproduced throughout Brazil,” Governor Joao Doria, Bolsonaro’s rival, celebrated on Monday.

With information from AFP and EFE