Responsible for the platform “Lives saved in Brazil by social isolation”, Professor Paulo da Silva e Silva and researcher Claudia Sagastizábal, from the Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Scientific Computing (IMECC) at Unicamp, warn that this is not the time to slow down social distancing measures. The study, which estimates one death avoided every 36 seconds in Brazil due to the adoption of distancing, shows a clear acceleration of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country after November 2020. In the teachers' assessment, with the start of vaccination against Covid-XNUMX disease, now is the time to view transmission blocking measures even more emphatically, given that we know there is light at the end of the tunnel.
“The vaccine is a way to have more strength to carry out social isolation, as we now see that it will end. In March, it was about social isolation in the hope that science would develop a vaccine in the short term. Now we eliminate this doubt. There are problems of scale, but an elementary doubt has been eliminated, so it is worth maintaining the process now and saving lives”, observes professor Paulo José da Silva e Silva.
The research “Lives saved in Brazil by social isolation” has projected, since March, an estimate of the deaths avoided by adhering to social distancing. The latest update, on January 26, shows that a life is saved every 36 seconds. It is projected that on January 27 alone, 576 lives were saved by the distancing measure. To arrive at this estimate, the reproduction rate of the new coronavirus is used, that is, to how many people an infected person transmits the virus. The researchers warn that this number has already been close to or below 1, showing stability and even a drop in the evolution of the pandemic, as in the case of September 2020. From November onwards, however, the reproduction rate returns to above of 1, with a particular increase in certain regions of the country, such as the North, revealing a second wave of Covid-19 in Brazil.
“In the North, what worries us most is that it is at 1.46, which is one of the highest rates there is. What we see is that there is in fact a second wave established and it seems that we are losing the situation. We are now back to the level of the number of patients we had at the last peak. In Brazil as a whole, we are already past the peak and the graphs point upwards, which makes us worried”, says Paulo.
In the Southeast, highlights researcher Claudia Sagastizábal, the study shows an increase in the number of active infected people, that is, those who have the virus and can still transmit the disease. This number is currently higher than that recorded at the first peak of the pandemic, in mid-August. In São Paulo alone there was, in January, double the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths compared to November.
“It is a time of maximum alert and return to greater isolation to once again contain the growth of the curve, buying time for the start of the mass vaccination process. We need to prevent the situation from getting worse and public health systems from being put under too much pressure”, emphasize the researchers on the study website.
Claudia also indicates that the most important thing in the research, in addition to calculating the number of lives saved, which shows the effectiveness of social isolation, is the possibility of observing trends. At the moment, she points out, the numbers show a worsening. “The charts are showing an upward trend. This trend is worrying,” she says.
The number of new cases on January 26, according to the consortium of press vehicles carrying out the survey, was 63.626, totaling more than eight million people who have already had Covid-19 in the country. The moving average of deaths was also the highest recorded since August 4, reaching 1.058 deaths per day in the average of the last seven days. Almost 219 thousand people have already lost their lives to the disease in Brazil.
Social distancing is still necessary
Transmission blocking measures, the researchers emphasize, remain extremely important, even with the start of vaccination, as there is still a low proportion of people immunized. “There is a fact that is undeniable: the virus has no legs, people are the ones who lend the legs. It passes from one person to another through close contact. What we have to combat the speed of transmission is social distancing”, analyzes Claudia.
Vaccination still has a long process to go through, which will require the population to breathe hard so as not to become careless until a significant percentage is immunized. “In relation to vaccines, we are seeing that there is still a tiny proportion even for those on the front line. So this is going to be a lengthy process that will take perhaps the entire year, so we cannot let our guard down with social distancing and mask-wearing measures”, he points out.
In Paulo's opinion, this is a moment of hope, but one in which we cannot lose sight of the fact that the health system is overloaded and there is a high number of sick people and deaths. In the Campinas region, recalls the professor, there was 100% capacity of public beds for Covid-19 on the night of last Saturday, January 23rd. “One of the things we have now that we didn’t have before is the vaccine, but the existence of the vaccine should not be seen as a moment to relax, but rather as a moment of hope,” he says.
