Most of those who had Covid say they were not vaccinated at the time, shows Datafolha

Nine out of ten Brazilians who claim to have contracted Covid-19 did not have a complete vaccination cycle or were not even vaccinated when they had the disease, according to a Datafolha survey.

The survey was carried out with 2,023 people over 16 years old from all states in the country. Telephone interviews were conducted on January 12 and 13. The margin of error is two percentage points.

The information that opens this text concerns only the group that declared to have had Covid, 647 people. In this group, 10% of respondents had at least two doses of the vaccine.

Datafolha points out that just under 10% of adults in the country stated that they did not have complete primary vaccination coverage when they contracted the disease. This would represent about 15 million Brazilians over 18 years old and with less than two doses of vaccine received.

A caveat is worth mentioning here: the institute did not differentiate between the Janssen vaccine, a single dose, that is, in general terms, it was considered that the immunizer in question would have an ideal primary regimen of two doses.

At the end of last year, the Ministry of Health announced guidance that everyone who took the Janssen vaccine should take a booster dose from the same manufacturer two to six months after the initial dose. According to the folder, there is a significant increase in protection with reinforcement.

The consortium of press vehicles, collaboration between leaf, UOL, O Estado de S. Paulo, Extra, O Globo and G1, points out that 68% of the total population in Brazil is already on a complete primary regimen, that is, with two doses of vaccine or one dose of Janssen — an important difference to be noticed in relation to the Datafolha data. For the adult population, the consortium points out that 89.63% received two doses or the single dose immunizer.

Upon being contaminated by Sars-CoV-2, 76% of white respondents say they had not taken any dose of the vaccine and 87% and 86% of browns and blacks, respectively, respond the same.

Looking by regions, 79% of respondents in the Southeast became infected when they had not yet taken the vaccine, against 88% in the Midwest and North, and 87% in the Northeast.

Also according to the survey, 95% of unregistered employees, when having Covid, had not taken any dose of the immunizer. Such a high percentage — also 95% — is repeated only among students.

The rate drops to 83% among registered salaried employees, to 69% among civil servants and to 65% among retirees.

There are also differences between people with higher education who contracted Covid without having had any vaccine doses (77%) and those with high school (87%) and elementary school (83%).

The difference is greater when looking at the divisions by family income. About 69% of people with more than ten minimum wages of monthly family income caught Covid without any dose of vaccine received. For those with an income of up to two minimum wages, the rate rises to 90%.

The previous data may be representations of the different pandemics experienced in Brazil, especially when considering the pre-vaccination period, in 2020, and the first months of 2021, with vaccination available only for some age groups, at the same time that the gamma variant was the country accumulate high numbers of cases and deaths.

At least part of the formal jobs, with usually higher salaries, allowed remote work and, consequently, less travel and less risk of contagion. Meanwhile, other jobs, especially informal ones, with lower pay, resulted in service continuity and increased risk.

Separating the data by religion, 90% of evangelicals who had Covid say that, when they became infected, they had not received any dose of the vaccine. For Catholics, the rate was 80%, and for spiritualists, 71%.