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City Hall of São Paulo announces cancellation of New Year’s Eve

The mayor of São Paulo, Ricardo Nunes, announced this Thursday (2) the cancellation of New Year’s Eve in São Paulo.

Ricardo Nunes is on a trip to New York accompanied by the governor of the state of SP, João Doria (PSDB), and confirmed the cancellation at a press conference.

In this way, the city joins at least 19 other Brazilian capitals that chose not to hold the turnaround party from 2021 to 2022.

“It is important to emphasize that it is not because something serious was detected, but it is necessary to carry out monitoring, and the deadline would be very short”, said the mayor about New Year’s Eve.

According to Nunes, it will be the Sanitary Surveillance that will guide all the decisions of this kind, including about the realization of Carnival.

“For Carnival, we will take the decision further on, emphasizing very clearly: based on the decisions of the health surveillance. The City Hall will not carry out any action or communication that is due to adverse pressure on surveillance studies”, declared Ricardo Nunes.

The use of masks is also mandatory in the city of São Paulo, stated Nunes. At the state level, the expectation of releasing the use of protection as of December 11 was also overturned, confirmed the government of João Doria on Thursday.

Health surveillance recommendation

The City Hall complied with the guidance recommended by the health surveillance, which carried out a study to assess the epidemiological situation in the city. The mayor commented on the study during the press conference:

“We, as representatives of the executive, are responsible for passing on what the surveillance has decided, we are always following the surveillance. It’s a very large study, more than 15 thousand people monitored. Evidently what weighed a lot was the issue of the new ‘micron’ variant, he said.

The results of the study had already been anticipated to CNN by the municipal secretary of Health, Edson Aparecido.

The analysis carried out by the Health Surveillance Coordination (COVISA), of the Municipal Health Department (SMS) of São Paulo, pointed out that it is still unclear whether the new variant of the Ômicron coronavirus is more transmissible, or whether it causes more serious Covid-19 . But he indicated that “preliminary evidence” suggests an increased risk of reinfection.

The study recommended “strengthening genomic surveillance to identify the circulation of new variants”. Surveillance also called for non-essential travel to be avoided, particularly to locations where the new variant has significant incidence.

“Epidemiological indicators and assistance remain stable, however, considering the new fact – emergence of the Ômicron variant -, […] already diagnosed on several continents and confirmed cases in this capital of São Paulo, at this time we recommend: keeping the use of masks mandatory; intensify the population’s immunization process”, concluded the study.

Anticipation of booster dose

After analyzing the surveillance, the capital asked Anvisa to reduce the interval for applying the booster dose. The proposal is that the extra dose can be applied four months, and not five, after the citizen, over 18 years old, completes the vaccination cycle.

In an official letter sent to the minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, the president of Anvisa, Antonio Barra Torres, and the state secretary of Health, Jean Gorinchteyn, the City Hall of São Paulo cited the “non-mandatory, until the moment of presentation of the vaccine passport to foreigners entering the country”, to carry out “exceptional and extraordinary authorization” to the body.

The document was signed by the municipal secretary of Health and the coordinator of COVISA, Luiz Artur Vieira Caldeira.

On Wednesday (1), secretary Edson Aparecido also declared to the CNN that 1 million people from São Paulo who could have taken the booster dose have not yet attended the vaccination posts.

According to Aparecido, the Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, would also agree that “the most effective way to combat the new variant is to advance in the vaccination of the booster dose”, declared the secretary.

“We are going to base ourselves, as we always have, on the studies of Health Surveillance. The study by the Epidemiological Surveillance of the municipality will dictate exactly the decision regarding the issue of New Year’s Eve. Carnival is in three months. There is still a lot of time to get organized”, declared Aparecido.

Reference: CNN Brasil

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