RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Brazil’s COVID-19 death toll, which topped 250,000 on Thursday, is the second highest in the world for the same reason that its second wave has not yet faded: the Prevention never became a priority, experts say.
From the beginning of the pandemic, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro mocked the “little flu” and imprisoned local leaders for imposing restrictions on activity; he said the economy must continue to hum to avoid worse hardships.
Even when he approved pandemic payments for the poor, they were not advertised as a means to keep people at home. And the Brazilians are still out while vaccination has begun, but the launch has proved much slower than expected.
“Brazil simply did not have a response plan. We have lived it for the last year and we still do not have a clear plan, a national plan “, Miguel Lago, executive director of the Institute of Studies on Health Policies of Brazil, who advises officials of public health. “There is no plan at all. And the same goes for vaccination. “
While the daily cases and deaths of other countries have fallen, the largest nation in Latin America is parked on a high plateau, a sudden mid-2020 high. 1,000 deaths daily. Official data showed a confirmed total of 251,498 deaths on Thursday.
At least 12 Brazilian states are in the middle of a second wave even worse than the one faced in 2020, said Domingos Alves, an epidemiologist who has been tracking COVID-19 data.
“This scenario will get worse,” Alves told the AP, adding that the virus is spreading more rapidly among the population. In the state of Amazon, where the capital, Manaus, saw hospitals run out of oxygen last month, there have been more than 5,000 deaths in the first two months of the year, about as many as in the rest of the world. 2020.
“It is the most difficult time we have had since the confirmation of the first case,” O Globo newspaper Carlos Lula, president of the National Council of Health Secretaries, said Thursday. “We’ve never had so many states with so much difficulty at the same time.”
Alves and other public health experts said the spread was exacerbated by the authorities’ reluctance to follow the recommendations of international health organizations to enforce stricter restrictions.
It is up to governors and mayors to impose blockades or other restrictions to contain the virus. The states of Sao Paulo and Bahia recently introduced night curfews, but experts say the moves are too late and insufficient.
“These are not containment measures; they are palliative measures, always taken after the fact, “said Alves, who is also an adjunct professor of social medicine at the University of Sao Paulo.” “Blockade” has become a curse word in Brazil. “
Miguel Nicolelis, a prominent Brazilian neuroscientist, warned in January that Brazil should enter a closure or “we will not be able to bury our dead in 2021.” He had been advising northeastern states on how to combat COVID-19, but recently left his position, dissatisfied with his refusal to shut down, the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported.
“Right now, Brazil is the largest outdoor laboratory, where it is possible to observe the natural dynamics of the coronavirus without any effective containment measures,” he wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. “Everyone will witness the epic devastation.”
There are a few exceptions, but they remain marginal and have not inspired a broader movement.
Sao Luis, the northeastern capital of the state of Maranhao, was the first Brazilian city to close completely last May. According to the governor of the state, Flávio Dino, he was successful, despite Bolsonaro’s efforts to undermine the restrictions and sow doubts about their effectiveness.
“It has been very difficult to manage prevention and distance measures,” Dino said, adding that the first hurdle was economic and social, especially after last year’s pandemic emergency aid program. federal government ended.
Lago noted that Bolsonaro rarely even comments on the pandemic and that he has effectively moved on to other priorities, including support for Congress to loosen arms control laws and pass economic reforms. His administration is trying to reinstate some social assistance payments COVID-19, but for a smaller group of needy Brazilians.
The only preventative measure Bolsonaro constantly supported was the use of treatments such as hydroxychloroquine, which showed no benefit in rigorous studies.
The Bolsonaro administration has also taken a practical approach to the vaccination campaign. It was mainly based on an agreement to buy a single vaccine, AstraZeneca, which has been slow to arrive. So far, the national vaccination effort has been based primarily on Chinese-made CoronaVac features achieved by the state of Sao Paulo, although the federal government is now trying to buy others.
Brazil’s decades of experience with successful vaccination programs and its large network of health care nationwide led many experts to believe that vaccination, even if it started late, would be a relatively quick affair. In previous campaigns, the nation of 210 million was able to vaccinate up to 10 million people in a single day, health experts noted.
Five weeks after the first shot, Brazil has only vaccinated 3.6% of its population. This is more than double that of Argentina and Mexico, but less than a quarter of that of Chile, according to Our World in Data, an online research site that compares official government statistics.
“There is no way to be fast with a shortage of vaccines; this is the crucial point, “said Carla Domingues, who for eight years coordinated Brazil’s national vaccination program, until she left her position in 2019.” Until there is no more supply, the speed will be slower, as you have to keep selecting who can be vaccinated. “
Meanwhile, the virus continues to spread throughout Brazil and is taking its toll.
In the state city of Araraquara, in Sao Paulo, there have been more deaths this year than all last year and the occupation of intensive care units exceeded the maximum capacity, with people on waiting lists to enter in the ICU and receive treatment. Local authorities responded on Sunday by announcing a complete closure, making Araraquara the second city to impose such a restriction.
“We never imagined we would get to this point,” said Fabiana Araújo, a nurse and city committee coordinator to fight COVID-19. “It was the only option.”
—— AP writers David Biller contributed from Rio and Mauricio Savarese from Sao Paulo.