In the week in which Brazil completes one year since the start of vaccination against Covid-19, experts heard by the CNN warn that the country must face, in the coming days, the peak of the wave caused by the Ômicron variant, while “we race against time to avoid a new health collapse”.
According to data released by Conass (National Council of Health Secretaries) on Monday night (17), Brazil reached the highest moving average of Covid-19 cases since June last year. There were more than 74,000 registered cases and 121 deaths caused by the disease in the last 24 hours.
In an interview with CNN This Tuesday (18), the epidemiologist and professor at the Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES), Ethel Maciel, explained that the worsening of the pandemic seen at this moment is the result of the agglomerations made during the holiday season.
“Christmas, New Year, the holidays in general take two weeks for us to have the peak of contamination. And we are still on a vacation period, where many people tend to crowd”, he pointed out.
The professor points out that most likely the peak of the new variant of the coronavirus has not yet been reached. She comments that there is a difficulty in obtaining concrete information that gives an overview of the pandemic in the country because of the blackout of data that the Ministry of Health had after a cyber attack in December, and the lack of tests for the diagnosis of Covid-19.
“We don’t know the exact numbers. It most likely has a big underreporting,” said Ethel.
The epidemiologist comments that data on the effects of Ômicron in the UK indicate that it is about twice as transmissible as Delta.
“We are following the data from other countries that do a lot of testing, but I believe we are not yet at our peak. We are going to have two difficult weeks here in Brazil”, he said.
Reference: CNN Brasil
