the arrival of Ômicron variant in Brazil, mixed with the existing circulation of the Delta variant and new cases of influenza, make it necessary to carry out preventive measures to avoid agglomerations, according to neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis.
On Thursday (24), the governor of Bahia, Rui Costa (PT), claimed to CNN that “it would be irresponsible” to do the Carnival in 2022. On the same day, the city of São Paulo canceled 24 blocks that would occur in the period.
In an interview with CNN, Nicolelis stated that “without any doubt these are the right decisions. We have to act preventively because, as all the data in the world show, the new variant has a much higher infective power than Delta, and we’ve seen countries like the UK jump from 50,000 cases to 120,000 cases a day in less two weeks”.
According to him, with the circulation of two highly infectious variants of the coronavirus, and influenza “showing its face in Brazil”, “there is no way to gather millions of people right now”.
For the scientist, the first effects of this scenario are already being felt. “A few days ago we started to see the service curve in the UPAs in greater São Paulo increasing dramatically, hospitalizations increasing. That’s the drama.”
Nicolelis says that “any kind of big agglomeration will lead to outbreaks that could send the whole country into a new wave”.
For him, a new wave in the current context would be “more complicated”, as there would be a risk of people having multiple infections, for example Covid-19 and influenza, and “this is very worrying”.
In Nicolelis’ evaluation, the coverage vaccine in Brazil, where around 67% of the population received both doses, it represents a “respectable” level, but it is still not ideal.
“The United Kingdom has a slightly higher coverage than Brazil of two doses, they exceeded 70%, and even so, in less than two weeks, there was a jump in cases, and this started to generate a lot of pressure on the country’s hospital system. big, to the point that they are considering new measures for after Christmas”, he says.
He claims that Brazil still has weaknesses in this regard, such as a large number of unvaccinated people and others with overdue second dose.
Nicolelis compares the post-year-end party scene in Brazil to that of the U.S after the Thanksgiving holiday. He says that “14 days later there was an explosion of cases, and they could reach 300,000 a day in the next few days, because it had one of the fastest years in terms of travel.”
With that, the neuroscientist claims that it is possible that Brazil has a peak of cases in the two weeks after the Christmas Eve, which will be celebrated, albeit with restrictions, in several cities, including Rio de Janeiro.
“The case of Rio de Janeiro is extremely peculiar, you can’t understand what happens there, because a party is scheduled to celebrate the end of the pandemic in September, cancel it, cancel New Year’s Eve, return New Year’s Eve. Now Carnival is released without restrictions”, he says.
“It doesn’t make any sense, it doesn’t make any sense to have any of these mass celebrations, because we’re only going to pay the price in human lives.”
Reference: CNN Brasil
