Omicron variant must be taken into account for New Year’s Eve, says secretary

“Carnival, on the other hand, is an event that is three months away and this theme should be revisited later on,” said the secretary, who thinks that the population of São Paulo will have 90% of those vaccinated against Covid-19 by February of next year.

Earlier, the municipal secretary of Health of São Paulo, Edson Aparecido, said that “it is too early to take a decision of this nature” and that the Ricardo Nunes (MDB) administration should wait until next Sunday (5), when the Sanitary Surveillance should deliver a study with epidemiological and assistance indicators to say whether the capital will keep its plans to organize a New Year’s Eve party on Avenida Paulista. “We are going to wait for the studies so that at the beginning of the week we can give a guideline,” he stated.

Several capitals canceled the celebration of the New Year’s party, among which are Salvador, Florianópolis and Belo Horizonte.

Gorinchteyn also warned of the risks of end-of-the-year family gatherings, where people should be more encouraged for celebrations they didn’t have in 2020. “And with that there’s a much greater risk because people will flock to celebrate, drinking, kissing, hugging, screaming and singing,” he said. “This is a risky scenario that people need to remember and the use of masks must be pressing.”

The two secretaries signaled to maintain the use of masks in open places because of the new variant. Gorinchteyn echoed what the governor said on Tuesday night (30), that the state government asked the Scientific Committee for a new assessment of the need to use masks outdoors. Last week, the toucan announced that they would no longer be mandatory from December 11, if the rates of cases, hospitalizations and deaths by Covid-19 continued to drop in SP.

Aparecido recalled that December is an atypical month, in which popular commerce in the city receives people from all over Brazil and there is a greater chance of virus circulation.

Another common point between the two secretaries is that they rule out the expansion of beds in hospital networks. However, both have already referred three hospitals for possible severe cases of patients infected with the omicron variant, two in the east side, in Guaianazes (state) and Tide Setúbal (municipal) and one more in Guarulhos, in Greater São Paulo, because of the airport International.

Gorinchteyn also recalled that the country’s confirmed cases of patients with the omicron variant are imported. Two of them are missionaries, a 41-year-old man and a 37-year-old woman. They landed in Guarulhos, on the 23rd, from South Africa. Both went to a laboratory at the airport terminal and tested positive for Covid. The couple is isolated in the home of relatives in São Paulo.

The third case is a 29-year-old boy who tested positive for Covid after returning from Ethiopia at the end of the week — he passed through South Africa, where there were the first confirmations of infection by the new strain. It fulfills isolation in Guarulhos.

The three infected are asymptomatic and had already been vaccinated against the new coronavirus, according to the State Department of Health.

high risk

The existence of the new strain was reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) on the 24th after the emergence of cases in South Africa. Since then, there has been confirmation of infections caused by omicron in the five continents.

“Given the mutations that could confer the ability to escape an immune response, and give it an advantage in terms of transmissibility, the probability that the omicron will propagate around the world is high,” the organization said on the 29th.

On the same day, health ministers from G7 countries warned that the variant requires urgent action. “The international community faces the threat of a new highly transmissible variant of Covid-19, which requires urgent action,” the ministers said in a joint statement.