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In October, Carlos Antunes explained to the Observer that the peak of the second wave was still undefined. The graphs of new cases of contagion by the new coronavirus were “pointing to the sky.” “There is great uncertainty, it can be from mid-November to the end of December. This taking into account the current data, because as R
Carlos Antunes, the mathematician who is monitoring the second wave: “We may have two thousand cases next month”
Now, the researcher already has a more concrete prediction: the peak will occur sometime between November 25-30 and may even occur earlier, depending on the number of new cases that occur through Saturday.
“We have the peak in sight because the number of new daily cases is decreasing and converging to zero. R
Yes and no. According to Carlos Antunes, the decrease in the incidence rate of Covid-19 “has been seen since October 27”, about two weeks after the government announced eight containment measures. The measures provided for the entry into a state of calamity, the prohibition of meetings with more than five people, the limitation of numerous family events to a maximum of 50 participants, the cancellation of academic parties, the reinforcement of inspection actions, the tightening of fines. to those who fail to comply with the regulations and the recommendation – and later mandatory – to wear a community mask on public roads.
In other words, the decline in the Covid-19 incidence rate began to occur long before the stricter restrictive measures outlined by the government and put in place on November 9. In fact, experts believe that the impact of these new rules -as the compulsory collection in the municipalities with the highest risk of transmission- “will only begin to take effect throughout this week.” “It is possible that yesterday’s and today’s figures reflect these measures,” says Carlos Antunes.
Even so, the researcher from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon believes that “The measures are going in the right direction because they will accentuate and reinforce the downward trend”: “People’s behavior and wearing a mask were already having an effect. There is an attenuation in the increase of cases, which begins to slow down. But by reinforcing protection and mitigation measures, this reduction in acceleration intensifies until it reaches a point where cases will no longer increase on a daily basis ”.
We can not. “If we confirm this week that we do not have exaggerated figures until Saturday, the scenario of the peak occurring in the next seven days is greater. If the cases until Saturday continue to progressively increase above seven thousand cases, even at a slower rate, the peak may be later ”, anticipates Carlos Antunes.
According to the expert, the continuity of measures limiting social contacts – whether it is mandatory collection from 1:00 p.m. to the weekend or other initiatives that have the same effect – it is essential that the increase in new cases reported daily begins to diminish and, at some point, the metric even begins to decrease. “By expanding the state of emergency, we seek to flatten the curve”, describes Carlos Antunes. But it all depends on “people’s behavior” and “what happens in the next few days.”
Right now, the average number of new cases in the last seven days is 5,800 notifications per day. If this trend occurs, “we have stabilized.” “This confirms what we have observed both in the R
No. What Carlos Antunes explains is that this is the average of new cases in the last seven days diagnosed by health authorities, confirmed by tests. In fact, the number of infections that occur daily is much higher: “We estimate that there are 6,200 infections per day”, the researcher advances. That is, there are 400 cases of contagion that are not being detected by the health authorities, they continue to circulate and transmit the virus.
However, that difference has already been 800 cases, which means that “the strategy of doing more tests” is working.
“When we detect the same number of infections, we can begin to reduce the transmission of the virus. We need two strategies: to count more quickly the number of infections that are taking place and to stop the spread of contagion by reducing contacts between people ”.
To find out how many people are being infected daily by the new coronavirus, experts use a process called Nowcasting. Epidemiologists are not so interested in knowing when a new case is identified, but when the person was actually infected. Then they correct the data and that case begins to appear the day symptoms begin.
This is the logic of the bar graph incorporated in the daily bulletins published daily by the Directorate General of Health (DGS): the darker bars indicate the date of diagnosis of the new daily cases and the lighter bars refer to the date of onset of symptoms – the indicator that really matters to know how the epidemiological situation in the country is going.
