In alarming change, more young people are dying from Covid in Brazil

In the worst period of the pandemic, Brazil faces daunting new event with daily records of infections and deaths: the increasing number of deaths among young people.

So far this month, according to government data, around 2,030 Brazilians aged 30 to 39 have died from covid, more than double the figure recorded in January. Among those in their 40s, there were 4,150 deaths in March, up from 1,823 in January, and among those aged 20 to 29, deaths rose from 242 to 505.

“Before, the risk factor for dying from covid-19 was being older, having a certain co-morbidity”said Domingos Alves, professor of medicine who is part of the national watchdog group. “Now the risk is to be Brazilian.”

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Friday, Fiocruz, a nonprofit healthcare organization, released a report showing the same trend with slightly different numbers.

The report states that cases between The 30-59 age group rose from the start of the year to mid-March to nearly double the national average of 316%. In these age groups, deaths have increased by at least 317%, compared to 223% in Brazil as a whole.

In Sao Paulo, the richest and most populous state in the country, the increase is particularly large in private hospitals, Secretary of State for Health Jean Gorinchteyn said in an interview. People aged 60 and over continue to dominate hospital admissions, but the share of those under 50 increased 15% from 10% last year.

People aged 30 to 59 increased from the start of the year to mid-March at a rate almost double the national average of 316%.

In the state capital, more and more people between the ages of 20 and 54 are infectedsaid Friday to GloboNews TV the city’s health secretary, Edson Aparecido. Younger patients wait longer to see a doctor, which is why more sick people are arriving.

The explanation for the rising rate of infection among young people, in an extremely young country, remains unclear, although authorities and medical experts suggest several possibilities. First, throughout 2020, local and regional restrictions hampered socialization. That changed with the holidays, the new year and the release of custody.

Secondly, a variant first detected in the Amazon city of Manaus is probably partly to blameaccording to Jaques Sztajnbok, who helps manage the intensive care unit at Emílio Ribas Hospital, one of Brazil’s main facilities for infectious diseases. Patients get seriously ill with this variant or with the UK variant, which is also more contagious. A study carried out in Sao Paulo found one of the two variants in 71% of cases.

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Third, vaccines are limited in Brazil and there is no fixed date to vaccinate younger people.

Fernando Brum, director of Santa Casa de Sorocaba Hospital, said the mutation of the virus into a much more contagious version with a viral load that makes people sick faster and more aggressively has seriously affected young people with mostly cases. asymptomatic. .

Brum, whose hospital is a two-hour drive from Sao Paulo, says the ICUs are also full of people in their 30s. He estimates that the age of patients hospitalized with covid-19 has decreased by 50% from 2020.

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“The intensive care unit is constantly and continuously busy,” he said. Patients in their 30s occupy at least half of those beds, and the average time they spend in hospital has tripled from last year. It’s been declining recently for a sad reason: patients are dying faster.

Brazil has become the epicenter of the pandemic, recently reporting more than 100,000 cases and 3,650 deaths per day. Home to 212 million people, the country is only behind the United States in number of victims of the virus. Although vaccines began to be applied in the past week, the 19 million doses deployed so far have only covered 7% of the population with a single dose and have only fully vaccinated 2%.