Health personnel disinfect the streets of a favela in Rio de Janeiro.Europa Press
The Epidemic Control Center of Imperial College, a scientific institution in London, has disclosed that Brazil this week reached the highest rate of transmission of covid-19 since May.
The so-called contagion rate (RT) reached 1.30 according to data from the institute, which means that 100 infected people transmit the disease to 130. The figure refers to the week that started this Monday and is the highest it has detected College since the week of May 24, when it was 1.31.
By the margin of error of the British statistics, the index can be between 0.86 and 1.45.
That is to say: 100 infected people infect a minimum of 86 people and a maximum of 145. According to analysts, a contagion rate greater than one means that the disease is advancing, since the patient infects more than one person.
An RT less than one indicates a reduction in the transmission rate speed.
According to the Imperial College, Brazil has spent five weeks in a row, between September and October, with a contagion rate of less than one.
The lowest rate was registered two weeks ago (0.68), and coincided with the week in which there was a problem in the data system of the Ministry of Health that, according to the agency, caused a delay in updating the pandemic .
On Monday of last week the RT was 1.10.
According to Health, as of Monday, Brazil has registered more than six million confirmed cases and 169,485 deaths from covid-19.
The country has experienced an increase in the average number of deaths in recent days, reaching 496 per day according to the media consortium, an analysis made from official data from the regional health secretariats, a figure 50% higher than the average for two weeks.
The same group recorded the considerable increase in the daily average of deaths in three regions: southeast (118%), central-west (42%) and south (19%).
The data agree with the statistics of the Observatory of Respiratory Syndromes of the Federal University of Paraíba, which analyzes the rate of contagion in the Brazilian States.
According to the UFPB, four of the six states with the highest rates are from the southeast or south regions: São Paulo (1.32), Paraná (1.28), Santa Catarina (1.25) and Rio de Janeiro (1 ,2. 3).
Alert in hospitals
São Paulo, the region with the highest rate of contagion in Brazil and where the average daily number of deaths per week is growing the most, has confirmed 1,210,625 cases and 41,276 deaths from covid-19 to date.
The data that the Government presented last week already attracted attention: cases, hospitalizations and deaths had been increasing for two weeks and were already the highest in two months of registration.
What most worries Governor João Doria's health team is the occupation of the State's ICU beds.
According to the figures presented by the Government, the rate was 47.4% in the State and 55.2% in the metropolitan region of São Paulo.
It is already 17% higher occupancy than last week, which, in turn, was 18% higher than the previous one.
“The virus does not stop;
accelerates when there is no care.
I have nothing against moments of joy, but every day we are losing lives in Brazil.
Those who want to live together have to protect themselves ”, declared Doria.
Despite sometimes minimizing the risk of a second wave in the state by ensuring that the new European health crisis is related to the colder climate in the northern hemisphere during this time of year, Doria's health team has taken action against it. increase in cases.
Last week, the Secretary of Health, Jean Gorinchteyn, reported the publication of a decree that prevents the use of any ICU or conventional bed for covid-19 for other care in all hospitals, public and private, and suspends the new elective surgery schedules.
The goal is to reserve beds for covid-19 in the face of a possible increase.
“We have to understand how the curve will behave.
This decree gives us time to analyze and take more definitive measures ”, justified Gorinchteyn.
This Monday, the secretary said again that "some data is still being entered into the system so that we can analyze it and then create measures more effectively."
São Paulo is not an isolated case.
The occupancy rate of ICU beds with coronavirus patients in the Unified Health System (SUS, the Brazilian public health system) reached 92% in the city of Rio de Janeiro on Sunday.
It is the highest occupancy since June 12 of this year, according to the Municipal Health Secretariat,
Agência Brasil reported
.
The occupancy of intensive care beds, which fell to 59% in mid-August, was around 80% since the beginning of November.
Even so, the Government of Rio rules out, for the moment, increasing social restrictions, but has announced that it will increase the number of beds.
The State of Ceará, whose health system was also under pressure in the first half, is also experiencing a rebound.
In the region known as Sertão Central the occupancy rate is 90%.
The country still continues with a fragile national coordination of the health crisis, despite having one of the most robust public health systems in the world.
The Ministry of Health, led by General Eduardo Pazuello, shows low rates of budget execution.
This week, a report by the newspaper
O Estado de S. Paulo
revealed that the portfolio may lose 6.86 million
diagnostic
tests
for the new coronavirus that will expire between December of this year and January 2021 and that are stored in the ministry.
This Tuesday, the National Congress commission that follows the Government's measures against the pandemic approved a request for Pazuello to explain this episode to parliamentarians in a session scheduled for December 7.
Information about the coronavirus
- The coronavirus map: this is how cases grow day by day and country by country
- Questions and answers about the coronavirus
- Guide to action against the disease
- In case of symptoms, these are the telephones that have been enabled in each Latin American country.