RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On Thursday, June 4th, the city of Florianópolis completed one month without new deaths from Covid-19, a disease caused by the novel coronavirus. The last recorded death in the capital of Santa Catarina state occurred on May 4th.
In all, seven deaths and 710 cases of the novel coronavirus were officially recorded in Florianópolis. The capital of Santa Catarina is no longer the city with the highest number of cases in the state, behind Concórdia (955) and Chapecó (944), both of which have large meatpacking business establishments.
With a population of around 500,000 inhabitants, the capital of Santa Catarina had fewer Covid-19 victims than neighboring capitals Porto Alegre, with 37 deaths, and Curitiba, with 53 deaths so far.
One of the measures adopted by Florianópolis and praised by infectologists was the shutdown of public transportation on March 19th, which was only restarted on June 17th, with a reduced capacity inside the vehicles. Commerce in the city had already been partially restarted in early April.
According to the city, all suspected cases have also been tested, even asymptomatic ones, in a campaign that included more than 30,000 tests at locations such as airports and drive-thru points. People who tested positive and were unable to remain in isolation have been assisted to stay at inns or hotels. Over 44,000 distance calls were also performed using an app launched during the pandemic – “Alô, Saúde”.
On Twitter, Mayor Gean Loureiro said the city’s mortality rate stands at 0.8 percent, the lowest among Brazilian state capitals. In Brazil, the average is 5.6 percent, according to the Ministry of Health’s report on Wednesday, June 3rd. The country confirmed over 584,000 cases and 32,548 deaths from Covid-19 on that date.
The Mayor also claims the city’s early isolation helped reduce the spread of the disease. Florianópolis went into quarantine on March 13th, while most Brazilian cities began isolation only later that month.
Still according to City Hall data, the transmission rate (R) in the city is between 0.8 and 1.2, with an average of 1 – that is, an infected person passes the disease on to one other person, on average.
A rate below one means that the disease is under control. Loureiro added that it is still crucial that the population wear masks to prevent a high level of contagion.
The transmission rate has reached four in cities like São Paulo, the epicenter of the pandemic in Brazil. Today, the rate also stands at 1.1 in the capital of São Paulo, according to the city’s municipal government.
The Health Department of Santa Catarina also stated in interviews on the city’s situation that, in addition to early patient care, the reduction in the number of deaths is mainly due to a lower rate of contagion and a reduction in the number of new cases.
“Florianópolis did nothing extraordinary. It only studied what was happening in the world, read the articles, researched with experts from other countries. We didn’t wait for a shock to start isolation”, wrote Loureiro on his profile.
The challenges of data in Brazil
Despite the low case record and the higher number of tests performed in Florianópolis, Brazil may be experiencing an underreporting of Covid-19 records.
Figures from Our World in Data, based on official country data, show that Brazil performs approximately 0.49 tests per confirmed case, making it the least-tested country in the world among nations with available data – a number of countries in Africa and some in Latin America do not feature in the sample.
Brazil performs fewer tests per confirmed case than all its South American neighbors with available numbers, such as Bolivia (1.95 test per case), Chile (3.7), Argentina (6.43), and Paraguay (45.7).
The first of a three-stage study conducted by the Federal University of Pelotas, financed by the Ministry of Health, which has been collecting samples in hundreds of Brazilian municipalities, shows that Brazil may have as many as seven (7) times more coronavirus cases than recorded (the study’s second stage began yesterday).
A study by Funcional Health Tech, which analyzes health plan data, shows that the peak of the pandemic in Brazil could happen in early July and the country could reach 1.7 million cases.
Despite potential underreporting, Brazil now ranks second in the world with the most cases of coronavirus, behind only the United States, which records 1.8 million cases. In terms of number of deaths, it is the fourth-ranked country, close behind Italy but far below the United Kingdom and the United States.
Source: Exame