Brazil has overtaken India in terms of coronavirus infections, regaining the position of the world’s second-worst-hit country, as it scrambles to engage the virus that is wreaking havoc on the vast Latin American nation.
The country reported 85,663 new cases on Friday, bringing the total to 11,363,380. The number of deaths rose to 2,216, bringing the total to 275,105. Today, Brazil is the United States in terms of deaths and infections worldwide.
While a combination of competitive social distancing restrictions and mass vaccinations has led to a decline in infections in much of the world in recent weeks, Brazil is lately going through the worst phase of the pandemic. Cases and deaths have risen after the end of year-round gatherings and clandestine carnival festivities, while a new, more transmissible variant is accelerating contagion. Hospitals across the vast country are on the brink of collapse, prompting state governors to impose curfews and close businesses.
“The situation is completely out of control,” said Raquel Stucchi, an infectious disease specialist and professor at Unicamp University. “The situation is most likely to get worse because, despite the restrictions announced by governors and mayors, the federal government continues to insist that they are not necessary. “
Since the arrival of the virus a year ago, fitness experts have criticized President Jair Bolsonaro’s rejection of the disease and the lack of a national policy to combat it. Restrictions vary from city to city and are eased only to be reimposed weeks later. of policies is little or not at all implemented, reducing their effectiveness and prolonging the fitness crisis.
The resurgence of the virus has led Brazilian states to try to coordinate measures to limit action to combat the pandemic, but they have not yet announced concrete guidelines. Meanwhile, Bolsonaro continues to urge governors to allow businesses to reopen, stating that the economic cost of the pandemic outweighs the effects of the virus if other people are unable to work.
Indian Puzzle
Since peaking in September with roughly one hundred thousand new infections daily, Covid cases have plummeted across India to just over a tenth of that figure, some states have recently noted a recovery. The number of deaths has also fallen to less than a hundred. consistently with the day, from more than 1,000 six months ago.
This steady decline has intrigued scientists, with many pointing to multiple similar points to India’s relatively young population and surveys suggesting that herd immunity has been achieved in parts of the country overpopulated: Brazil’s population is also young, and the spaces where researchers have noted possibilities for collective reproduction are also young. immunity was overcome by another wave of the virus. Others have proposed unproven theories in the past that widespread exposure to a host of tropical diseases confers some coverage against Covid.
Epidemiologists have also questioned India’s official figures, pointing to low rates and a usual lack of reporting of causes of death, especially in rural areas of the country. However, a pause in Covid wards suggests that the trend is real.
The South Asian country now expects to vaccinate about 300 million people through August, but the pace of its vaccination campaign lags behind that goal. Only about 26 million doses have been administered, covering about 1. 6 percent of the population, despite a resumption this month after the government opened access to citizens over 60 and others at risk aged forty-five and older.
Vaccines in Brazil
In Brazil, delays in vaccination efforts have raised concerns. Brazil has been slow to start vaccination and has done so with only a few million vaccines available, enough to cover even the previous teams in the country of 212 million people. noted that shipments of ready-to-use vaccines and doses stalled in India and China, and negotiations with pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer Inc. , have dragged on for months.
Brazil has administered the first doses of the Covid vaccine to about 4. 4% of its population, according to Bloomberg’s Vaccine Tracker.
Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello has been harshly criticized for the delays and has lost ground in negotiations for the acquisition of more vaccines. Earlier this month, Economy Minister Paulo Guedes spoke with Pfizer. Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco and Lower House President Arthur Lira sent a letter to Pazuello this week asking for an explanation on the timing of the vaccine’s delivery, and Lira also asked the Chinese ambassador to Brazil for supplies.
Amid mounting pressure, Bolsonaro on Wednesday walked away from his same old defense of unproven anti-Covid remedies and praised the importance of vaccines. The president, who has said that he himself will not be vaccinated and even joked about the possible side effects of the injections. , stated that “Brazil is one of the few countries in the world that has the capacity to produce vaccines, and we need it. “
For now, the doses are for CoronaVac boosters from Sinovac Biotech Ltd and AstraZeneca Plc, both with agreements to be produced locally. Pazuello said on Monday that India had banned the export of 8 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine to Brazil, according to Reuters.
Initial studies have indicated that the Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines are effective against the variant originating in the northern city of Manaus, which fitness experts say is likely partly to blame for the outbreak of the virus across Brazil. The strain appears to have at least twice as contagious and have a viral load up to 10 times higher, according to early studies.
“We have a new variant that is much more transmissible,” said Stucchi, from Unicamp University. “Without preventive measures, we will see cases accumulate exponentially. “
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