Brazil topped 574,000 COVID-19 deaths as delta variant advances

Brazil has recorded 698 deaths from the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of deaths to 574,209, at a time when the delta variant is progressing in all regions of the country, the Ministry of Health said on Saturday.

In the bulletin circulated this Saturday by the authorities, the Cumulative infections since the start of the pandemic have reached 20,556,487, with 28,388 new cases identified in the last day.

The Ministry of Health also reported that 551,081 patients are still under observation, which means that the health emergency remains, despite the fact that in most of the country, social distancing measures have been lifted.

Even though the the number of cases and deaths has fallen sharply in recent months, As vaccination progresses, authorities are concerned about the expansion of the delta variant, the most contagious of those recorded to date in the world and which has already been detected in at least 18 of the country’s 27 states.

One of the centers of these concerns is the city of Rio de Janeiro, where this mutation identified in India is starting to be predominant and is already responsible for around 50% of cases detected in recent weeks.

Even so, in the city there are almost no restrictions on the movement of people or economic activities and, this Saturday, the beaches of Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblón were packed with people on a sunny day with high temperatures.

Regulator opposes mandatory quarantine for travelers

Friday the The National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa, regulator) has spoken out against a court ruling requiring a mandatory 14-day quarantine for passengers arriving from the UK, South Africa and India, including Brazilians, in the city of Guarulhos in São Paulo.

“The imposition of the measure entails a opposite effect than expected, increased health risks at airports“, Said the regulatory body in a statement, after filing an appeal against the decision of Judge Alexey Suusmann promulgated on August 13.

By decision of Suusmann, all passengers from these countries must remain isolated in Guarulhos, a city in the metropolitan region of Sao Paulo, before traveling by land or air to other destinations.

The measure, according to Anvisa, “generated a detention of passengers from abroad at Guarulhos airport, unexpectedly and chaotically, in an airport environment, place of transit and rapid flows, unsuitable for permanence or for carrying out quarantines ”.

Quarantine, which aims to reducing the circulation of the Delta variant of the coronavirus, was determined despite the requirement that all passengers arriving in Brazil must present a negative clinical PCR test for covid-19.

Cumbica International Airport, in the city of Guaruylhos and which operates for Sao Paulo, is the The main one in the country with four terminals and a connection center for the other destinations of the South American giant.

Anvisa estimated that passengers prevented from boarding their domestic connections end up fleeing the airport and those who do not have the economic conditions to comply with the quarantine in hotels end up staying inside the terminals with a “negative impact on health”.

(With information from EFE)

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