Brazil reaches 200,000 deaths from coronavirus without a clear vaccination strategy

Brazil surpasses the tough official mark of 200,000 deaths from covid-19 with a cloudy outlook ahead.

The country is about to enter the seasonality that favors the circulation of respiratory viruses and is immersed in a political war to launch vaccination.

It still does not have an effective policy to stop contagions, even in the face of the imminence of a more transmissible variant of the coronavirus.

In this scenario, Brazil recorded 200,498 deaths from coronavirus on Thursday and 7.96 million cases, more than 87,000 of them registered in the last 24 hours.

If at the beginning of the health crisis in some regions there was greater concern than in others, the situation is now serious in the most diverse areas of the country.

In recent months, Brazil has seen the virus spread across its territory more evenly and, for example, the situation in the southern regions, which were initially less affected by the low concentration of cases and which now worsen, worsen. suffer with their crowded healthcare systems.

After reaching the first 100,000 official deaths from covid-19, Brazil has not registered peaks accused of deaths from covid-19 as occurred during the first months.

The Brazilian strategy basically focused on managing the increase in cases and the occupancy of hospital beds, for which the mayors and governors decided to expand or reduce the restrictive measures frequently based on official data.

The measures to follow up the cases and thus try to stop the infections were not implemented as a robust public policy.

The deaths from covid-19 have been spread over a longer period of time, but Brazil never really managed to control the pandemic.

Officially, more than 200,000 deaths have been registered since March, the month of the first death.

About half of them every five months of pandemic in Brazil.

But the human loss from one of the biggest health crises may still be greater.

The excess of deaths had already been more than 200,000 in relation to the average of the previous years in mid-November, according to data from the National Council of State Secretaries of Health (CONASS).

In addition, the Federal Government system that records hospitalizations and deaths from covid-19, Sivep-Influenza, reported this Wednesday the 6th the figures of 187,800 confirmed deaths and another 80,000 deaths from severe acute respiratory syndrome (a complication of the covid-19 and other influenza syndromes) unspecified, which may include cases of coronavirus not registered in the exams for reasons ranging from sampling problems to difficulties in detection by laboratory test.

Vital Strategies - a global organization made up of experts and researchers that works together with governments - has already warned about the possibility of omitted cases with the justification that the WHO determines that cases in which patients presented three or more clinical symptoms of covid-19 should be diagnosed as suspect.

The Ministry of Health has been affirming that the cases are reviewed and that only later they are included in the monitoring system.

Added to this is the delay in notifications and the data withheld that Brazilian researchers highlight at this time, when the demand for hospitalizations of those infected with the coronavirus has grown again in several states.

This is due to the fact that, as the service base is saturated, the files take time to fill out and to be notified to the federal system, which generates a delay in the data chain.

This scenario is also affected by the accumulation contained during the end of the year holidays, when both the laboratories and the hospitals have worked with reduced equipment, on call.

Internalized pandemic

If before there was a large concentration in the populated capitals and metropolitan cities, now the interior of the country is already marked by the advance of the virus and faces the pandemic with weaker health systems.

The most recent epidemiological bulletin of the Ministry of Health, with data up to December 26, shows that 56% of the new deaths with covid-19 in that week were already concentrated in the cities of the interior.

This internalization of mortality has been observed since September, when the concentration of deaths began to be equated between these two profiles.

In several Brazilian states, managers are working to try to increase ICU beds, but now they face greater challenges in hiring health workers, exhausted from work done on the front line for months.

Amazonas - a state where the theory that it achieved group immunity without a vaccine at a high death rate - is experiencing a new worrying wave.

The Minister of Health, Eduardo Pazuello, has affirmed that Amazonas is walking towards the proportions of last year.

And Governor Wilson Lima has assured that he is working against the clock to enable more hospital beds, transforming administrative spaces into rooms with conventional beds and conventional beds into intensive care ones.

There, the Justice determined more restrictions after the Government relaxed the measures under pressure from merchants and businessmen.

In a context in which Latin American neighbors are already reacting to the rebound in covid-19 cases with new restrictions, Brazil remains inert.

And it seems to repeat the same erratic stance from the beginning of the pandemic.

The political war between the president, Jair Bolsonaro, and the governor of São Paulo, João Dória, in the race for a vaccine has generated a tense climate in the country.

The Federal Government faces pressure from society, governors, and even the courts to anticipate a national immunization strategy after delays in negotiations for both vaccines and supplies.

The Government of São Paulo is ready to request from Anvisa (the National Health Surveillance Agency) authorization for the emergency use of Coronavac, and promises to begin vaccinating priority groups on January 25.

Meanwhile, the Bolsonaro government is racing against the clock to try to start vaccination earlier.

He promised to start five days before São Paulo, on January 20.

The schedules for the number of vaccines that will be offered to health centers in the coming months have not yet been defined.

"Sorry, but life goes on"

President Jair Bolsonaro continues to make statements that cast doubt on the safety of vaccines at a time when trust in science is critical to ensuring a comprehensive immunization campaign.

Experts are being categorical in saying that the immunization strategy is collective and that, in order to achieve the desired protection, the majority of the population must receive the vaccine.

Although vaccination will begin in the last days of January, these days are very busy to ensure that coverage.

Even those who receive immunization will still have to take some precautions, such as keeping their distance and wearing a mask, since it takes time for the body to develop an immune response and most vaccines need two doses to offer admissible protection.

In a change of tone, the Ministry of Health issued a statement of condolences for the victims of the pandemic.

The note expresses its solidarity with the relatives who have lost their loved ones and claims to do so on behalf of the president.

"The Ministry of Health works tirelessly, following scientific studies and strengthening dialogues between Brazil and other countries to ensure safe and effective vaccines for the population."

Bolsonaro, for his part, in a broadcast on his social networks, again questioned the death toll in Brazil.

He says that there are people who died "with" covid-19, as if it were possible to separate the disease from the cause of death.

“We are sorry today, we are beating 200,000 dead.

Many of these deaths

with

covid, others

due to

covid, we do not have a cut-off line in this regard.

But life goes on".

Information about the coronavirus

- Here you can follow the last hour on the evolution of the pandemic

- 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.