Coronavirus: why Uruguay beats its case record again

MONTEVIDEO.- After several days with a certain stability in the amount of daily infections of Covid19, The National Emergency System (Sinae) reported a record 4,604 new cases in Uruguay on Friday, similar to the 4,581 produced on Thursday. From these figures the government of Luis Lacalle Pou is currently wondering what is the reason exponential increase in infections and so far there are several theories.

Vaccination still does not seem to have a prominent role in the cases and in the Ministry of Public Health (MSP), they understand that it is “normal” that this is not yet reflected, because the percentage of people fully vaccinated is not sufficiently significant.

But why have coronavirus infections increased? The question has more than one answer. Andrés Ferragut, engineer and researcher in applied mathematics at ORT University and member of the models and data area of ​​the Honorary Scientific Advisory Group (GACH), understands that there is a “slight” increase in the number of people infected.

The researcher said The country that “without a major control effort, it cannot be lowered (the number of infected)” since “the very tendency of the epidemic is to increase”. Ferragut clings to the hypothesis that “maybe, what we have done before, does not achieve”, referring to the entry into the country of the Brazilian variant P1 which “may be more contagious and has become dominant “.

The GACH member understands that “there is still room for the epidemic to expand”, and although “the vaccination rate is good, there is still a high percentage of the susceptible population”.

Mobility

For his part, Minister Daniel Salinas said on Friday that the number of cases in the last days is related to Mother’s Day, which took place two weekends ago. Salinas said this was explained by the Epidemiology Division of the MSP. In addition, epidemiologists have found that most of the outbreaks in the past week were due to intra-familial infections in all departments.

The country reported on Tuesday that so far in May there has been a significant increase mobility across the country, with a total average implying around 10% more than in April. This was confirmed by the Uruguayan Interdisciplinary Group for Data Analysis (Guiad) of Udelar’s Covid-19 in its latest update.

In this sense, the Mobility Directorate of the Municipality of Montevideo (IMM) also observed an increase in mobility this week, despite the use of methodologies different from those of Guiad. According to the municipality, car traffic in the capital is today only 10% less than before the declaration of the health emergency in March 2020.

Data from Guiad and the town hall confirm that the peak in mobility occurred on Sunday, May 9, with Mother’s Day. The GACH had issued at that time a series of recommendations asking the population to stay in its bubble and not to leave residences “because of the high risk of intra-family infections”.

Despite Salinas’ explanation, Lacalle Pou said he is not “completely shutting down” that the exponential increase in cases is due solely to the May 9 celebrations. “I listen to many explanations,” said the president.

Referring to the 4,581 cases on Thursday, the president said these could be linked to the fact that 21,201 tests were carried out, a number that exceeds the average number of swabs that had been recorded. However, fewer tests were done on Friday (17,608) and more positive cases were confirmed (4,604).

Intensive care situation

Today, the government seems to focus more on the number of hospitalizations and deaths than on daily cases, because it is in the former that we will see the effect of vaccination before.

According to the president of the Uruguayan Society of Intensive Medicine (SUMI), Julio Pontet, the fact that today there are “such high daily cases means that in eight or ten days” a percentage of these “will enter into intensive care “and it will be done” in historical percentages “.

Last week, SUMI posted a series of data on its social media that showed a decrease in the average number of ICU admissions and deaths. According to Pontet, today the downward trend has “disappeared”, not only because of the increase in daily cases of the last two days, but also because the admission of patients in intensive care has increased.

Regarding the role of vaccination in hospitalizations, Pontet said that “it is still early” to see the decline and that it will start to stand out with 40% of people vaccinated and here “we still have to achieve it”.

Luis Núñez, secretary of SUMI and member of the intensive care coordination table, said there was “less income for the elderly” and “a decline towards the younger groups”. Núñez thinks that may be because “many are not vaccinated” and “most have fallen ill with the P1 variant”. “So with more mobility, it makes sense that now more young people are coming in,” he concluded.

The Country / GDA

The country (Uruguay)