Opinion – Pedro Hallal: The drop in deaths from Covid-19 continues

The chart that accompanies today’s column is an encouragement to those who are rooting for the end of the Covid-19 pandemic. The drop in deaths in the world, which started a few weeks ago, seems increasingly sustainable. The moving average of Covid-19 deaths today is comparable to that of the first weeks of the pandemic, around April and May 2020, when the curve was starting to rise.

It is not the first, nor will it be the last time, that vaccination is saving humanity from a terrible disease. Covid-19 has killed more than 6.2 million people worldwide to date. Although the disease has reached every country in the world, the damage caused by it varies greatly according to the health policies adopted.

Unfortunately, Brazil has been, since the beginning of the pandemic, one of the worst countries in the world in the face of Covid-19. Just to give you an idea, the mortality from Covid-19 to date is three deaths per 1 million inhabitants in China, 158 per 1 million in New Zealand, 236 per 1 million in Japan, 291 per 1 million in Australia, 438 per 1 million in Vietnam, and a shameful 3,104 deaths per 1 million in Brazil.

Among the ten most populous countries in the world, Brazil has the highest relative mortality from Covid-19. Among the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), Brazil has the highest relative mortality from Covid-19.

And even within Brazil, inequalities are striking. The EPICOVID-19 study, led by the Federal University of Pelotas, showed that the poorest 20% have twice the risk of Covid-19 infection than the richest 20%. The same research showed that black people (black and brown) are twice as likely to get Covid-19 compared to whites. The greatest risk of Covid-19 among indigenous people came to be the target of censorship, the situation was so unequal.

We have already commented a lot here about the reasons that made us perform so shamefully in the face of Covid-19. Now it’s time to look ahead and take the necessary actions so that the decline currently observed is maintained. The main recommendation is that the population keep the vaccine against Covid-19 up to date.

Despite vaccination being a success in Brazil, some bottlenecks still need to be addressed. The first is the inequality in vaccination coverage among the states of the Federation. While some states have coverage close to 90%, others still struggle to surpass 50% of the immunized population. This needs to be resolved with good vaccination campaigns in the most remote parts of the country.

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Second, people need to be up to date with booster doses. Although the coverage of the first two doses of the vaccine against Covid-19 was satisfactory, the truth is that many people have stopped taking the booster doses. Arguably, for newer variants, booster shots are essential.

Finally, we need to speed up vaccination in children, which is still moving slowly in Brazil. After a ridiculous campaign to demonize the vaccine in children, led by the government itself, the truth is that the Ministry of Health itself admitted that there were no deaths of children from adverse effects of the vaccine. Even so, some fathers and mothers remain fearful, due to the fake news spread by politicians who have no commitment to life.