Brazil declared the third pandemic wave in the end phase

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The third wave of the COVID pandemic in Brazil is “in the end phase“, affirmed the state-owned Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) on April 8, linked to the Ministry of Health and Brazil’s leading center of medical studies.

According to the Bulletin of the COVID-19 Observatory of Fiocruz, released this Friday, both the incidence and mortality from coronavirus maintain a trend of sharp fall in Brazil, which allowed that, for the first time since May 2020, the 27 states of the country have COVID mortality rates below 0.3 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.

“The new data allow us to affirm that the third epidemic wave in Brazil, with a predominance of the omicron variant, is in the extinction phase,” concluded the bulletin, highlighting the gradual reduction in severe cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.

“Scientists warn, however, that this scenario does not mean the end of the pandemic and that it may be altered if new, more lethal variants emerge or that escape the immunity generated by vaccines,” the bulletin clarifies.

The conclusion represents a relief for Brazil, the country with the second-highest number of COVID deaths globally, after the United States, with almost 661,000 victims, and the third-highest number of cases, after the USA and India, with 30.1 million infections.

Despite these high numbers of deaths and infections, the average number of COVID victims in Brazil last week fell to 174 per day, the lowest in almost three months since January 17 (154 victims per day).

This average is well below the record number of daily deaths that Brazil reached on April 12 last year (3,124 deaths per day), when the country was at the peak of the second wave.

The average number of deaths due to COVID in a week fell to 94 per day on January 6, a level very similar to that of the first weeks of the pandemic (March 2020). Still, the arrival of Omicron, a much more contagious variant, caused the average to jump to 951 victims per day on February 11, since when it has been falling.

The average number of cases, which reached a record high of 189,526 per day on February 3 due to the rapid spread of Omicron and at the height of the third wave of the pandemic, fell sharply in the last two months and on Thursday was 20,837 infections per day, its lowest level since January 6 (15,670 cases per day).

The sharp drop in both deaths and cases is attributed to the progress of the vaccination campaign in Brazil, where 162 million people already have the full course of immunization (the two doses or the single-dose vaccine), equivalent to 76% of the population.

According to Fiocruz, vaccination has allowed the COVID case fatality rate in Brazil, which in 2021 was as high as 3% of those infected, to be currently below 0.8%.

Another data celebrated by what is considered the largest medical research center in Latin America is the bed occupancy rate for patients with COVID, which remained below 60% in all Brazilian states for the third week in a row.

With information from EFE