Portugal between the risk of a third wave in Europe and the question of immunization

“As long as there is no vaccination coverage for groups with a risk of 90% to 100%, there is always the danger that there are vacancies that can cause hospitalizations and death, because most European countries still do not have population immunity and that means that the virus can have a pandemic spread and cause waves ”, says virologist Pedro Simas, who points out that the transformation of a pandemic spread into an endemic one is only possible through group immunity, around 60% to 70% of the population.

According to the researcher at the Institute of Molecular Medicine (IMM), a new vacancy in Portugal would not have, “in principle”, the same impact, due to the ongoing vaccination process against covid-19, which has focused mainly on protection in risk groups and those most vulnerable to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, without demystifying, however, the idea of ​​vacancy.

“The virus is very widespread and the vacancies in different countries reflect the mitigation measures and the states of population immunity that they have, simply. It is not the winds that move from East to West or from West to East. From the moment they the whole world is a pandemic, the dynamics of virus spread in each country does not depend on the neighbor, but on the behavior of each country in terms of mitigation measures and vaccination program ”, highlights Pedro Simas.

The different rhythms of the pandemic show, above all, the position of countries such as Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom to relax their restrictions at this time, while Italy, Germany and France, for example, appear countercyclical, fearing a third wave due to the increase in cases, hospitalizations and deaths and new confinements.

International Health specialist Tiago Correia considers that this is a “different moment in the pandemic”, with ups and downs in the expression of covid-19 in the European continent, although he remembers that this has already happened in the first and second waves. . However, it refutes the idea that Portugal went through a third wave earlier than the center of Europe at the beginning of the year.

“We cannot call a third wave what happened in January. We experienced an increase in the second wave and we solved it now. This time, it did not go from West to East, because we did not live a third wave, we lived a second long wave that we are before the beginning of a third wave in Europe and, therefore, that means that if nothing is done, it will reach Portugal ”, he warns.

For the professor and researcher at the Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (IHMT), the scenario of a vacancy similar to the previous two is not so likely, due to vaccination and natural immunization due to infection, that In total, it already reaches about two million people (approximately 20% of the Portuguese population), which now represents a “favorable moment” for the country at this stage.

“We learned from what happened in the second wave. But, if I think it is possible that we go, according to the risk matrix, to ‘yellow’, I think so and with a certain naturalness,” he refers, in reference. to the government headquarters for the evaluation of the deconfiguration plan. “An eventual increase to occur will be at a slower rate for four reasons: vaccination, natural immunity, political response and the climate,” he reiterates.

Tiago Correia – who recalls “what, politically, could not have been done at Christmas and was done” in Portugal -, considers that Europe is ‘condemned’ to repeat these “ups and downs” in the management of the pandemic, up to the immunity of group It is achieved at the continental level, since it does not have geographic characteristics that lead to a “zero case policy”, only feasible without the existence of land borders, as well as political and social issues.

“Europe has this double condition: it is a group of many countries, with land borders, free movement and political and economic ties between them; and respect for individual freedoms is inscribed in its political genetic codes. And these two aspects mean that in Europe, there is no possibility of managing it if it is not through ‘up and down’. What changes is the pace and intensity of the growth of the escalation in the different countries “, he explains.

Pedro Simas foresees “a transition period” for Portugal, suspended between the path of group immunity and the vaccination coverage of high-risk groups, in which it is possible to “worry, tolerating a higher level of community diffusion”, due to the “very great cost” of confinement to the field.

Asked also about the containment of the worrying variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, such as those identified in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil, the virologist is calm about the possibility that a new variant will become dominant in Portugal, after that the British variant has already gained prevalence in terms of new cases, and reinforces the prospect of a future shaped by vaccination.

“Until the end of April, with the amount of vaccines that are going to arrive in Portugal, there is no reason not to carry out the first phase of the vaccination plan 100% and go a little further. Therefore, I anticipate very different May and June. in Portugal ”, he concludes.

Tiago Correia maintains that controlling the virus variants by restricting borders and air traffic with the countries associated with the variants is an “almost infantile” vision, although he does not question the measure, since it may delay the spread in the national territory .

“You cannot control a virus in this way. We restrict access from South Africa, but there are very strong flows between South Africa and Mozambique, so through Mozambique, there may be the entry into Portugal of the South Africa variant,” he observes. .

“There has to be a restriction on direct circulation between these countries, but in addition, we must recognize that this will not stop the circulation of variants and that we have to keep genomic sequencing very sharp to understand what is happening.” “, concludes Tiago Correia.

In Portugal, the covid-19 has already killed 16,845 people, out of the 821,104 confirmed cases of infection, according to the latest bulletin from the Directorate General of Health.

The covid-19 pandemic caused at least 2,792,586 deaths worldwide, as a result of more than 127 million cases of infection, according to a report prepared by the French agency AFP.

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