The North and Midwest were the regions that had the most reinfections by Covid-19, according to a survey by Datafolha. Among infected people, 14% already say they have caught the disease twice, while in other areas this share reaches a maximum of 9%.
In total, 2,023 Brazilians aged 16 and over were interviewed by telephone in all states, on Wednesday (12) and Thursday (13), with a margin of error of two percentage points. The research does not separate these two regions because there would not be a sufficient number of interviews for a safe analysis.
They also have the highest percentage of people who claim to have been infected, with or without confirmation of the test —41%, compared to 28% in the Southeast and Northeast and 27% in the South. became ill and did not take the exam (9%).
According to epidemiologist Jesem Orellana, from Fiocruz Amazônia, there would probably be an even greater difference in reinfections in the North if the data were disaggregated, because the epidemic behaved more aggressively there than in the Midwest, with the gamma variant.
A year ago, Manaus experienced a collapse of its health system, with patients dying from suffocation in hospitals that ran out of oxygen in the face of high demand. In the first quarter of 2021, there were 6,600 deaths in Amazonas, one of the highest per capita rates in the world.
“Another explanation could be the demographic composition of the North and Midwest, as they have younger populations than the South, for example, and we know that the virus circulated more in those under 50 and killed more in those over 50,” adds Orellana.
In these two regions, 3% of respondents say they have caught Covid in the last 30 days, when the omicron variant caused an explosion of cases (another 5% do not know if they caught it).
The new wave also seems to have hit the Southeast harder, with 4% infected and 2% not knowing. In the region, more than a third of respondents answered that a close friend caught the disease during this period.
A leaf showed this Saturday (15), based on the same survey, that Brazilians who claim to have contracted Covid are almost double the official figure recorded by the states. One in four people aged 16 and over reports having tested positive, which would represent 42 million, against 23 million reported cases regardless of age.
This level of underreporting is almost the same in all regions, except for the South, where only 14% of cases with evidence under examination would not have entered government statistics, according to the survey’s projection. Even so, it would be the equivalent of 736,000 uncounted cases only there.
Contributing to this is the lack of a testing policy during the two-year pandemic in the country and the data blackout that has occurred in Brazil since the Ministry of Health’s systems were brought down by hacker attacks in December.
The details of the Datafolha survey by region also show that the South has a greater rejection of vaccines against Covid, both in adults (4% have not been immunized and do not intend to) and in children (21% think they should not be vaccinated). .
The region still has the largest share of people who say they are not afraid of the virus (22%), only wear a mask from time to time when leaving home (17%) and are against the vaccination charge to enter closed places, such as offices, bars, restaurants and concerts (22%) —these rates are similar in the Midwest/North.
“The harmful anti-vaccine narrative is more common in conservative populations. The southern region of Brazil was the one that most voted for President Jair Bolsonaro [PL], next to the Midwest. As he attacks vaccines to this day, this unfortunate scenario seems reasonable to me”, says Orellana.
Despite the rejection of immunization pointed out in the survey, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Paraná have a higher vaccination coverage than Brazil as a whole. Orellana considers, however, that it is not possible to make comparisons between these two data because they do not have the same representation.
“Part of the low vaccination coverage in the North region, for example, could be explained by problems with the generation and transmission of data or by the lack of access to health services, which is very common in the vast interior of the Amazon and even in large metropolises. like Manaus and Belém”, he says.
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