With a reduction in the pace, Brazil exceeds the mark of 700 thousand deaths by Covid-19

This Tuesday (28), Brazil reached the mark of 700 thousand lives lost due to coronavirus infection. Throughout the pandemic, the rates of cases and deaths from the disease fluctuated, influenced mainly by the circulation of new variants of the virus.

According to data from the National Council of Health Secretaries (Conass), the country has a total of 700,239 deaths and 37,258,663 cases of the disease since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.

The monitoring of Covid-19 indicators, based on epidemiological weeks, reveals that the worst scenario in the country was observed in the week of April 4 to 10, 2021.

At the time, 21,141 weekly deaths were recorded and the country accounted for more than 351,000 victims, according to data from the National Council of Health Secretaries (Conass). The day with the highest number of deaths was April 8 of that year, with a total of 4,200 lives lost to the coronavirus infection.

The cumulative figure of 700,000 deaths was reached almost a year and a half after Brazil recorded 600,000 deaths from Covid-19, on October 7, 2021. That year, the 100,000 deaths were updated in a considerably shorter period of time (see below ).

Epidemiological scenario

The current epidemiological context shows a slowdown in the rate of deaths in the country, due to multifactorial causes. Among them are the advancement of vaccination, the application of booster doses and the formation of immunity conferred by the natural infection by the virus.

The day with the highest number of deaths in Brazil was April 8, 2021, with a total of 4,200 lives lost to the coronavirus infection. From the first week of April of that year, the number of deaths in Brazil began a downward trend – the moment coincides with the greater availability of doses against the disease in the country.

Slight increases were presented in June 2021 and February 2022, but with rates substantially lower than those compared to the pandemic record.

In early 2022, Brazil recorded a record number of weekly cases. In the week of January 23-29 last year, 1,305,447 cases were reported, bringing the total infections to over 25 million in the country.

It is estimated that the increase in virus circulation in the period was boosted by the introduction of the highly transmissible Omicron variant, identified in November 2021. The rise in infections, however, was not accompanied at the same pace by death indicators. In the same week, the total number of registered deaths reached 3,723.

Advancement in the application of reinforcement

Despite the significant improvement in the epidemiological scenario of the disease and a direct relationship between the reduction of severe cases and deaths from the infection and the vaccination process, the country faces difficulties in leveraging the application of booster doses.

“Vaccination against Covid-19 is a watershed in the pandemic in Brazil because it has drastically reduced the number of serious cases and deaths. At the same time, it brings with it an increased responsibility because people tend to talk less and think less about Covid and think that the pandemic is over”, says infectologist Evaldo Stanislau de Araújo, from the Division of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases of the Hospital of the Clinics of São Paulo.

The latest estimates from the Ministry of Health indicate that around 19.1 million Brazilians are overdue for the second dose of the vaccine against Covid-19 and are not completely protected against the infection.

The number of people who failed to receive the first booster dose reaches 68.6 million. Another 30.2 million are behind on their second booster dose.

“The next danger we have to face is that people will stop taking booster shots of the vaccine that will certainly be needed for a long time to come. And with that, we lose the immunological protection that we have today. So, we would once again have a potentially more serious scenario, with an increase in deaths and hospitalizations due to Covid-19”, says the doctor.

On the other hand, the application of doses of the bivalent vaccine is progressing in the country. So far, more than 5.6 million Brazilians have already secured a booster dose with updated vaccines. Among the elderly, there are 949,700 doses in people aged 60 to 64 years; 1 million in people aged 65 to 69 years; 1.2 million between 70 and 74 years old; 882,500 in the public aged 75 to 79 and 989,800 in the elderly aged 80 or over.

To receive the immunizer, you must have completed the primary scheme with the monovalents and respect a minimum period of four months since the last dose received. The Ministry of Health reinforces that both monovalent and bivalent vaccines have proven safety and are equally effective in protecting against the coronavirus.

See the priority groups that can be immunized with bivalent vaccines:

• Seniors 60 years of age or older;
• people living in long-stay institutions from 12 years old and their workers;
• immunocompromised people from 12 years of age;
• indigenous, riverside and quilombola people (from 12 years old);
• pregnant and puerperal women;
• health workers;
• people with permanent disabilities (from 12 years old);
• population deprived of liberty and adolescents in socio-educational measures, and
• officials of the Deprivation of Liberty System.