Increase in Covid cases in Asia and Europe raises alert for Brazil

The new outbreaks of Covid in countries in Europe and Asia spark an alert for the possibility of a new wave of the pandemic in Brazil.

Last Thursday (17), the governor of São Paulo, João Doria (PSDB), announced the end of the mandatory use of masks in closed places in the state. Protection, however, remains mandatory in some situations, such as in public transport, in addition to hospital environments and in health services (understand the rules).

For experts, even with vaccine coverage above 70%, the high circulation of the omicron variant and the scenario of withdrawal of restriction measures can lead to an increase in infections and, consequently, hospitalizations and deaths from the coronavirus.

In China, the moving average of new cases on Tuesday (15) was almost six times the number recorded two weeks ago. In South Korea, twice as many, and the country has never recorded as many deaths (230 was the moving average on that day) as it did this week.

The situation is not much better in Europe. Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Austria, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and France have a 27% to 83% increase in the moving average of contaminated people compared to 14 days ago.

In Germany, on Tuesday, the moving average was 200,000 new cases – more than 10,000 more than the Brazilian record (recorded on January 31), although the population here is more than twice the German population.

The country also faces a rise in deaths: 23% more than two weeks ago. This is also the case in Switzerland (38%) and the Netherlands (20%), although in the latter the pace of new cases seems to be starting to slow down.

In Brazil, 354 new deaths and more than 44,000 cases were recorded last Wednesday (16). The moving averages of cases and deaths are flat and down, respectively, from two weeks ago, at 40,335 and 345.

Even so, the withdrawal of many protective measures, including the release of the use of masks even in closed places, could provoke a new increase in cases.

According to epidemiologist and vice president of the Sabin Institute for Vaccines, Denise Garrett, the increase in new cases of Covid globally since January makes it clear that the situation is not isolated in some countries and can reach Brazil.

For her, an additional concern is that, at this moment, the country should be preparing for the arrival of the new wave, and this is not the case — on the contrary, states are removing the mandatory use of masks, easing restriction measures. and the federal government wants to downgrade the condition of the pandemic to an endemic one, which is when there is a known and constant number of cases and deaths annually.

According to Garrett, the country has not prepared itself enough to face another wave now, with measures such as expanding the testing available to everyone, the incorporation of drugs for use in the first days of the infection – such as the pills Paxlovid, from Pfizer, and molnupiravir, from MSD—and a communication campaign to expand booster vaccination coverage.

The same vision is shared by the professor at the Federal University of Espírito Santo, Ethel Maciel. “It was time for us to study very carefully what is happening in the countries of Europe and Asia to anticipate problems that may arise in the country with a possible new wave, such as the greater severity of disease in the elderly who received the booster for more than five months. and may be unprotected,” he says.

According to the epidemiologist at the Federal University of Pelotas, Pedro Hallal, the increase in cases in other countries raises an alert for Brazil. “The pandemic does not end when the government decides to withdraw restrictive or protective measures, or because the president is aiming for re-election, it ends when the virus stops circulating, and the virus will not stop circulating until we take the appropriate measures” , it says.

For him, as for Garrett, the discussion about masks in open spaces is extemporaneous. “The problem is not the discussion of masks in open places, the defense of [desobrigar as] masks in open places has existed since September. At the time, the moving average of deaths was 150, but there was no movement. Now, when it’s around 300, 400, managers decide to withdraw in what, to me, seems like an electoral decision and not based on science,” he says.

Professor at the Federal University of Bahia and researcher at Fiocruz Bahia, Mauricio Barreto warns that the behavior of the virus is not something predictable and, therefore, the withdrawal of protective measures is now hasty. “At the end of last year we had a slowdown in the pandemic, and soon afterwards the ômicron appeared. Now, with the withdrawal of the measures, we can already observe an initial rebound indicating a slight concern”, he says.

Barreto, along with 20 other Brazilian researchers, signed an article published in the Brazilian Journal of Epidemiology last December. The text lists 13 proposals that states and municipalities should adopt to strengthen epidemiological surveillance of Sars-CoV-2.

Among them, the detection of new cases in the initial phase, the isolation of infected people and their contacts and the use of more effective masks, in addition to accelerating vaccination. According to the researcher, although vaccines offer high protection against hospitalization and death, they have reduced efficacy against infections in the face of variants of concern, such as the micron, and new variants may still emerge.

“The basic idea is not to exaggerate the measures, and to maintain some of them, such as the use of masks, even as a sign that we are still in the pandemic. them now is to say that a low-cost and highly effective measure is no longer necessary, which I consider too hasty”, he says.