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RIO – Two hundred and twenty-five days after its first registration in the country, in São Paulo, the coronavirus pandemic reached the level of 5 million notifications in Brazil this Wednesday. According to the 8:00 p.m. bulletin issued by the press consortium, Brazil has 5,002,357 infected and 148,304 deaths as a result of the disease. The moving average for deaths was 631, the lowest since May 11.
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However, an independent survey indicates that Covid-19 has already reached 30 million people. Despite the differences in calculations and the problem of underreporting of cases, there is a consensus that contagion is changing. Today, the occurrences are less serious, in part because health professionals have learned the behavior of the disease.
The rector of the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel), Pedro Hallal assures that the pandemic has already infected six times more people than the figures released by the Ministry of Health. coronavirus in 133 cities of 26 Brazilian states, in addition to the Federal District.
The first four phases of the investigation have already been completed; the last two, financed by Fapesp and the Ministry of Health, should close in November.
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– Rapid tests are easy to apply and allow to know the panorama of the disease in the two months prior to their application. But older cases, especially mild ones, are not identified, reflects the epidemiologist. – We return to the cities at each stage of the study and we see how complicated it is to say if one has achieved herd immunity. I thought this would have happened in Manaus and Boa Vista, but the moving average of occurrences increased again in the following months. So, I don’t think there is a region of the country with this kind of protection against the virus.
Christovam Barcellos, health worker and coordinator of Fiocruz’s Covid-19 Monitor, estimates that in Brazil the case curve is much slower than that of European countries.
– Brazil, throughout this pandemic period, had a very slow increase compared to European countries, since it did not have its peak right at the beginning of the disease. The country presented that plateau in May and focused on that. We can say that since September the number of cases and deaths has been falling, it is a very slow curve in relation to other countries. This means that transmission continues and that we are still in a critical period of the pandemic. And we are not in the second wave, we are still in the first, which happened in a broad way.
Change in case profile
However, the profile of those infected is changing. In the first phase, the main victims were the economically active population. Now, according to Hallal, they belong to “extreme age groups”: young and old who leave their quarantine. Still, since the beginning of the pandemic, low-income people are the most vulnerable to Covid-19.
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– Brazil and the entire planet will experience a second wave of coronavirus. It is inevitable – he explains, continuing: – The good news is that science has evolved in the management of disease. We know, for example, which is the most appropriate drug for each stage of treatment and when to intubate the patient. Months ago, we were unaware of the rapid drop in antibodies and the high transmission among children. We also did not know the most classic symptom of Covid-19, which is the loss of smell and taste.
Hallal suggests that it would take the country a year and a half to double the current number of infected people, a demonstration that the infection rate is decreasing.
– We are a Formula 1 car that continues to advance, but slowly. Until we have a vaccine, the numbers will keep increasing.
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In Barcellos’ opinion, if the underreporting in the country were not so high, Brazil would have already reached the milestone of 5 million cases of Covid-19.
– There is under-registration due to lack of tests that make it impossible to diagnose the disease. Therefore, it is possible that we have been at the 5 million level for a long time, but there are cases that have not been confirmed due to lack of evidence. There is also a delay in notification. A set of results is retained within the healthcare system and only entered after a period of time. This causes the curve to make some jumps (in cases) that are unreal. In the same way that there are jumps, there are sudden falls that occur on weekends or when there is a failure in the health information system – he says.
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Doctor in Epidemiology from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Paulo Petry agrees that the underreporting of the pandemic is high in the country, but the official figures have been increasingly faithful to reality, since the tests and the number of institutions involved in the Covid-19 Analysis.
Petry also emphasizes scientific advances, such as the application of antiviral drugs, including remedies. But the pandemic continues to grow, albeit at a slower pace, with the support of a “new audience.”
– Young people are breaking the rules of social distance and now they are the new infected. They are circulating vectors, that is, they contract the virus and take it home, where they interact with the elderly or people who have comorbidities, who are responsible for the largest number of hospitalizations – explains Petry.
It considers, therefore, that it is “hasty” to reopen schools, a measure proposed in several states, and that it would increase overcrowding in the streets.
– The number of cases has increased rapidly in the country since the beginning of the pandemic and is now slowly decreasing. But we cannot get used to the number of occurrences recorded today, which is still very high. We still have a way to go.
