Opinion – Pedro Hallal: Zé Gotinha against omicron

In the first months of 2021, after devastating the city of Manaus, the gamma variant (formerly known as P.1.) advanced through Brazilian territory and kept the moving average of deaths around 2,000 deaths per day, for several weeks. Brazil lost hundreds of thousands of lives in a short space of time.

At that time, our hero Zé Gotinha practically couldn’t defend us. Boycotted by the Ministry that made him a national hero, Zé Gotinha could do nothing to prevent the country from being defeated by the gamma variant. Vaccination began at the end of January in the country, but in the first months, it took place in drops, due to the negligence of the Federal Government in acquiring vaccines during the year 2020.

I remember as if it were today: Brazil was just recovering from the devastation caused by the gamma variant and the world started to report the discovery of the delta variant. The number of cases has exploded in some places, including in countries where vaccination had started before Brazil. At that time, some Brazilian researchers predicted the worst: Brazil will be devastated by the delta variant. Some even imagined that Brazil could reach the mark of 5,000 deaths a day.

I remember being a dissonant voice.

I expressed my perception that there would be a tug of war, a real battle, between the vaccine and the variant. On the one hand, our hero Zé Gotinha, who at that time was already honoring his history, distributing vaccines to a large portion of the Brazilian population. On the other side is the delta variant, the villain. A more transmissible variant than the original virus.

After a few months, you can say that our hero managed to win the tug of war against the delta variant. The moving average of deaths continued to decrease and today remains below 300 deaths per day. Our hero Zé Gotinha was once again celebrated by almost the entire Brazilian population, in a country where 95% of people want to be vaccinated against Covid-19.

The anti-vaccine movement has shamefully flopped in Brazil. Among false news, kickbacks, horns and banned videos, the villains were being brought down, one by one, by our hero Zé Gotinha.

Now our hero prepares for a new battle. After taking down the delta variant and the deniers, our hero will need to face a new villain: the omicron variant.

Science still has little information about our villain. A widely shared graph showed that the new variant has enormous contamination potential, making the contagion curve look like a rocket launch. On the other hand, preliminary data suggest that the omicron variant may be less aggressive than previous versions of the virus. Precise data on omicron behavior in relation to Covid-19 vaccines are still lacking.

As Palmeiras coach Abel Ferreira taught us, knowing your opponent is essential for anyone planning to succeed in a battle. We researchers are going to do our part, trying to produce information about the new variant quickly. And we will deliver them in the hand of Zé Gotinha, our national hero, to use them in his battle against our villain.

I remain optimistic, albeit with some trepidation.