Second wave of coronavirus has reached Brazil, scientist says

The increase in average daily coronavirus mortality in Brazil has reached May levels, igniting a yellow light between authorities, some of whom have escaped the possibility of returning to isolation, and researchers who believe the second wave has already reached the country and it may be more aggressive than that of Europe.

The Brazilian state most affected by Covid-19 is São Paulo, the most populous in the country, which has accumulated around 1.17 million infected people and exceeds 40,500 deaths.

São Paulo State Secretary of Health Jean Gorinchteyn said today that if the rise in infection and death rates continues, the government will “increase the restriction on hours of movement and is possible to return to the red level “of quarantine.

“Unfortunately, there is fatigue in the population which is lowering their guard, they have lost their fear of the virus and it is dangerous,” Gorinchteyn said, quoted by the Ansa news agency.

In the same vein, the person in charge escaped the possibility of putting in place a strict containment like that of last March, when the right to come and go was “restricted” in the cities to contain the contagion.

In total, since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Brazil, the third most infected country in the world and the second with the most deaths, has exceeded 5.9 million infections and is close to 167,000 deaths.

This increase in the average number of daily deaths has alarmed researchers, such as Domingo Alves of the University of San Pablo, who said today that the situation seen in the state is being repeated in others.

For Alves, this situation allows to say that “Brazil is already in the second wave of Covid-19”, replied the newspaper Folha de San Pablo.

However, this is a point of view that is not shared by the entire scientific community, which is consensus on the worsening of the health situation.

“Our second wave will be more similar to the United States than to Europe, because Europe managed to control the transmission of the first and the second came with the summer travel and people have brought new tensions ”, he declared, in his role, Natalia Paternak, doctor in microbiology of the same house of study.

She believes the second wave will arrive in the coming weeks to coincide with the Christmas and New Year holidays.

The moving average of those infected nationwide on Tuesday was 29,674, a figure which represents a 71% increase from the average seen two weeks ago.

At the same time, the death toll was 557, up 45% from 14 days ago, and it is back to levels in May, one of the most critical months in the pandemic .

After months of shrinking the average, in November they “again rose” steadily across the country and in most states, including major states, such as São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, explained the specialist who heads the laboratory. of Health Intelligence of the Faculty of Medicine of San Pablo.