Mônica Bergamo: SP sees deaths from Covid jump 45.8% in one week

The state of São Paulo once again recorded an increase in cases, hospitalizations and deaths from Covid-19 in the 17th epidemiological week of 2022, between 24 and 30 April.

Reports of infected people rose for the first time since February, when they reached a daily average of 14,542 registrations and began to plummet.

They went from a daily average of 3,628 cases, in the week before Carnival, to 3,784 last week – an increase of 4.3%.

Hospitalizations rose 10.4%, from a daily average of 155 to 177 hospitalizations.

This is the second increase in a row: in the previous week, the increase in hospitalizations had been 6%.

There are today in the state 448 patients in ICUs being treated for Covid-19, against 453 in the previous week.

In the wards, the number of patients increased from 785 to 847 in the same period.

The jump in the daily average of death records was the biggest, at 45.8% — the second increase after a string of falls.

There were 32 records of deaths from the disease, on average, per day, against 22 the previous week – and 20 from the 15th epidemiological week of the year.

The numbers are considered low when compared to the daily average of 272 deaths recorded in mid-February, during the explosion of contamination by the omicron variant. But the increase is being closely monitored by state health officials.

Technicians and health professionals who follow the numbers believe that the curves will still show high for some period, especially because of the holidays and the increase in social interaction of people during Carnival.

They still assess, however, that the epidemic can remain under relative control, as most of the state’s population is vaccinated — and a very large contingent has also been infected, keeping immunity high against the coronavirus for at least a few months. .

Of all the indices, hospitalization is the most reliable for reporting epidemic trends, as hospitalizations are reported immediately to the state records system.

Cases may be underreported, as asymptomatic people do not undergo tests and often do not even suspect that they are contaminated.

Death records, in turn, are often made days after the death has occurred, and do not immediately reflect what is happening on a daily basis in hospitals.

_{with BIANKA VIEIRA, KARINA MATIAS and MANOELLA SMITH}