Already hard hit by the coronavirus, Brazil, the second most bereaved country in the world, has recorded an increase in hospitalizations raising fears of a second wave similar to the one currently sweeping over Europe and the United States.
In this country of 212 million people where more than 166,000 people have died from COVID-19, the moving average of daily deaths, which was over 1,000 during an endless plateau from June to August, had fallen below 350 in beginning of last week. Since Saturday, it has gone back above 400.
The government of the state of Sao Paulo, the most populous and the first source of contamination in the country, reported an 18% increase in hospitalizations of covid-19 patients last week.
These alarming figures prompted him to put the brakes on the program to gradually lift restrictions applied since June.
Because in Brazil, eight months after the arrival of the pandemic, many are living again almost normally, as if the virus had disappeared.
In the biggest cities of the country, shops, schools or sports halls and cinemas have reopened and we see crowded beaches, bars and restaurants.
The recent increase in hospitalizations is observed above all in private clinics, where it affects younger and better-off people.
Undervalued figures
“At the beginning of the week, we had 90 patients hospitalized for confirmed or suspected cases of Covid-19, while during the last three months, we were running at 50, 55 on average”, reveals to AFP Sidney Klajner, president of the association that manages the Albert Einstein Hospital in Sao Paulo, one of the most renowned in the country.
“Most of the patients we see are young people who have taken fewer precautions,” he adds.
Last weekend, an unauthorized party brought together more than 2,000 people, most of them without masks, on Ipanema beach in Rio de Janeiro, where the occupancy rate of intensive care beds had reached 95% in public hospitals run by the town hall last week.
Despite the increase in hospitalizations at his own establishment, Mr. Klajner considers that it is “too early” to see “a prolonged upward trend” which could herald a second wave.
But Domingos Alves, head of the Health Intelligence Laboratory (LIS) at the University of Sao Paulo (USP), is more worried: “we could already be in the second wave”, he believes.
This researcher is particularly concerned about the recent increase in the rate of reproduction of the virus, ie the number of people infected by an infected individual. A rate greater than 1 is considered to be of concern.
“At the beginning of October, this rate was 0.97, with only four states (out of 27) above 1. But a month later, we had 14 states above 1 and the national average too”, reports Domingos Alves.
“We have reached a worrying level, especially since the official figures are largely underestimated and the number of screenings has fallen,” he adds.
Chat
For Julio Croda, infectious disease specialist from the University of Mato Grosso do Sul, the second wave should reach the various regions of the immense country differently, some, richer, having better hospital structures.
“In certain regions where the virus has already circulated more intensely, the second wave could also be less important, as in Manaus (north), for example”, adds this specialist.
Mr Croda is concerned, however, that “even if the second wave turns out to be less important in terms of new cases, it could be tragic” due in particular to the dismantling of field hospitals, due to budget cuts.
“Brazil must set up a mass screening program before being overwhelmed by the second wave like Europe,” said Domingos Alves, who points to a lack of political will.
President Jair Bolsonaro, who has always played down the scale of the pandemic on Friday called the idea of a second wave “gossip”.
“And if it does happen, we will have to face it, because if not, our economy will really collapse and we will become a country of miserable people”, he said, a few days after having launched that Brazil had to “stop to be a country of queers ”in the face of the pandemic.