the pandemic is gaining strength and restrictions are increasing

Brazil is semi-paralyzed. Half the country is working at half speed after several states have applied new measures to restrict mobility and prevent a collapse of the health system in the face of the strong advance of the pandemic which does not give the South American giant a truce.

Tcurfews at night and early in the morning and the complete shutdown of business establishments, except those providing essential services, began to be enforced forcefully over the weekend in 13 of the country’s 27 states.

The intention is to reduce the mobility of people to stop the spread of the virus which, after arriving in the country on February 26, 2020, a year ago, left in Brazil approximately 253,000 deaths and 10.5 million infected.

Currently, Brazil is facing an increase never seen before The number of deaths from covid and the state of health systems in half of the country are critical as intensive care units (ICUs) are on the verge of overwhelming their capacity.

Just two days ago, Brazil recorded 1,541 deaths from the coronavirus, the second highest number of deaths in a year, only surpassed by that of July 29 (1,595 deaths), when the country was at the top of the first wave of the pandemic.

From Friday evening, the states of Sao Paulo, Ceará, Paraná, Paraíba, Bahia, Piauí, Mato Grosso and Pernambuco curfew started it lasted until dawn and it lasted between 7 and 10 hours.

Mato Grosso do Sul has extended for the fifth time and for 15 more days the curfew applied since December 11 and other regions such as Acre and Santa Catarina they tightened the measures which they had already been applying for days.

For its part, Brasilia, the capital of the country, will close this Sunday and indefinitely “all commercial and industrial activities” of the city, with the exception of essential services and “cults, masses and rituals of any creed or religion”.

Protests

In São Paulo, Brazil’s most populous and industrialized state, with some 46 million people, the curfew began at 11 p.m. the day before.

In the capital of the same name, although bars, nightclubs, restaurants and shopping centers they were closed, many people continued to circulate in the streets and some even joined to protest against the measure on the iconic avenue Paulista, the most important artery of the city.

A small group of demonstrators, no mask, dressed in yellow shirts and armed with the flag of Brazil, called for the impeachment of Governor Joao Doria, shouting “no to the closure!”

Although fines were announced for those who broke the standard, authorities only gave educational guidance to those who passed on the streets the day before after 11 p.m.

The measure will be in effect until March 14 and it will be in effect in São Paulo’s 645 municipalities as the region experiences a worsening health crisis and has more than 6,500 patients hospitalized for covid, a number not seen since the pandemic hit the country.

The restriction on the movement of people in São Paulo is in addition to other measures that had already been adopted by Governor Doria, such as restricting the hours of bars, restaurants and shops during the rest of the day.

In Brazil, 13 states are in critical situation due to the high occupancy rates of intensive care units and 17 regional capitals on the verge of collapse, with more than 80% of their beds occupied, a situation which, for the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), the main Latin America’s medical research center America “reveals the worst-case scenario ever” since the start of the pandemic.

“We had seen an upward trend in cases but for the last newsletter it was a shock “Margareth Portela, researcher at the Covid-19 Observatory in Fiocruz, assured Efe.

According to the expert, in September the outlook improved but over time “we saw how the situation got worse until we reached what we see”.

For more than a month, the average number of deaths due to covid exceeds 1000 per day and the number of infections is close to 50,000, a situation which, for the researcher, “cannot be treated as a new normal”.

According to the latest Observatory bulletin, the transmission of covid in the South American giant is “intense” and there is no downward trend in infections and deaths in any state.

For the Observatory, if the tightening of measures contributes to stemming contagions, it is necessary to implement broader actions which involve all sectors of society and which are integrated at the various levels of government.

According to the researcher, actions such as limiting the movement of people within the country and until the borders are closed for passengers could help reduce infections more effectively.

This second wave, more virulent in the country, seems to have been caused by the circulation of new variants of the virus, including the so-called Brazilian mutation already present in 17 states and having already reached other regions of the world such as Japan, which first detected the new strain.

The Fiocruz ve vaccination as the only real measure to control the pandemic in Brazil, a process that was completed in no time but could be reactivated soon with the arrival of more supplies to be able to produce vaccines on Brazilian soil.

María Angélica Troncoso. EFE Agency

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