Brazil, before the omicron: wave of cases, canceled flights and lines for a test

Canceled flights, long lines to test for covid and a level of infections not seen in half a year mark a new stage of the pandemic of coronavirus in Brazil, which like the rest of the world is being punished hard by the omicron variant.

Brazilian authorities are preparing against the clock for an explosion of infections “similar to that which occurs in European countries, such as Spain, the United Kingdom and France,” Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga told reporters on Monday.

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In spite of everything, Queiroga hopes that the cascade of positives does not lead to an “explosion of hospital admissions”, nor of deaths in the same proportion, based on the good vaccination data, which have allowed 67% of the population to have already the complete guideline.

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BRAZIL AWAITS HISTORICAL RECORD OF CASES

If the forecasts are met, Brazil would far exceed the maximum daily number of coronavirus infections registered on June 23, 2021, with 115,228 positives.

On September 18, it came to notify 150,106 cases of covid-19 at once, but that number was actually an upward correction that included thousands of diagnoses from 2020 and 2021 that had not been counted until then.

There are also more pessimistic forecasts, such as a recent one from the University of Washington (United States) that foresees that Brazil can reach one million infections a day in two weeks.

Still far from those numbers, the ‘omicron effect’ is already being felt in both the health and economic spheres in this vast country of 213 million inhabitants, one of the worst hit by the pandemic in the world, with more than 620,000 deaths and 22.5 million cases.

The daily average of COVID-19 infections has multiplied by eight in the last two weeks, coinciding with the end of the Christmas holidays. Today alone, the country registered 34,788 infections and 110 deaths, indicating an upward trend.

In Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the two most populated cities in the country, with about 20 million inhabitants in total, it is suspected that in the first week of the year there was a historical record of cases.

In that period, an alleged hacker attack on the computer systems of the Ministry of Health, which is only now being resolved, prevented knowing the real evolution of the pandemic between December and early January.

But there are other data that reflect the inexorable advance of omicron. For example, in Sao Paulo, the number of health professionals on sick leave due to covid tripled in the last month in the public network, from 90 to 269, according to official figures.

In addition, the demand for diagnostic tests has skyrocketed in pharmacies and primary care clinics are full of patients with flu symptoms, because in addition to the covid, Brazil faces an outbreak of the H3N2 virus in the middle of the southern summer.

The image of long lines to undergo a rapid test is repeated these days in large Brazilian cities.

In this context, Queiroga announced that this month the Government will distribute “40 million rapid antigen tests, of which 14 million will be distributed in the next 15 days.”

Although at the moment the intensive care units are not being occupied at the same speed and the deaths associated with the coronavirus remain stable, around one hundred a day.

HUNDREDS OF CANCELED FLIGHTS

The omicron variant is also beginning to affect the country’s fragile economic activity, especially the airline sector.

Major airlines, such as Latam or Azul, have been forced to cancel more than 500 national and international flights due to the sudden increase in casualties of their crew, either due to covid-19 or flu.

The Brazilian subsidiary of Latam, the largest airline in Latin America, has canceled about 120 flights from yesterday, the 9th, until next Sunday, and asked its clients to confirm the status of their flights before heading to the airport.

Azul reported that since last Friday 10% of its operations suffered alterations, which is equivalent to around 400 impacted flights.

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Deshawn