RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In contrast to largely vaccinated countries such as Israel, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Europe, where the number of admissions and deaths due to the delta variant is increasing, it appears to be quite different in Rio de Janeiro.
Although the Delta variant corresponds to 95.8% of the covid-19 cases in Rio, the city has registered a decrease in the pandemic indicators, caused, in the city hall’s evaluation …. because of vaccination.
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In hospitalizations for the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the reduction was 26% between the total of the last week (epidemiological week 35) and the total of two weeks earlier (epidemiological week 33).
Based on this, the city decided to lower the alert level in some Administrative Regions (RAs) from high to moderate. The announcement was made this Friday, during the release of the city’s 36th epidemiological bulletin.
The six districts where the alert level is moderate are the Port Zone, São Cristóvão, Penha, Ilha de Paquetá, Santa Teresa, and Barra da Tijuca. Previously, all 33 RAs were at high risk of contagion transmission.
The other regions remain at high risk. For the last five weeks, the entire municipality has remained classified with a high level of probability of contagion.
“In the urgent and emergency care network, we have had a reduction in attendance. This reduction continues, as we had already shown last week,” explained the undersecretary of Health Surveillance, Márcio Henrique Garcia. “The drop is also confirmed in hospitalizations. Comparing week 35 with week 33, we had a 26% decrease in this indicator. Before we had 10%, so the reduction has been increasing. Yesterday we had fewer than 700 people hospitalized.”
According to Garcia, the number of confirmed cases per epidemiological week follows the same trend. This index, however, is more susceptible to inaccuracies caused by the delay in notifications.
“After several weeks of significant increase, we had a fall. And, in the case of deaths, after we saw stabilization in this increase, the trend is for a fall (in the coming weeks).”
The city hall also advised that the Delta variant corresponded to 95.8% of the cases in Rio in August. However, the increase in cases caused by the new strain was not reflected, at least not in the same intensity, in the number of deaths.
“We have an almost total predominance of the new variant in August. But we see a much lower lethality rate with the Delta variant, which shows the vaccination effect,” said secretary Daniel Soranz.