RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) charts are sufficient proof of the situation: while the curve of confirmed cases in Europe has been clearly declining since mid-April, other regions, such as the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean, Southeast Asia, and Africa, continue to add new Covid-19 infections at a fast pace, with some countries showing very high cumulative incidences (in seven days), such as the 150 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in Chile.
Elsewhere in Latin America, the epidemiological situation is alarming in Peru, Brazil, Panama and Puerto Rico, that have the highest rates, according to a member of the Spanish Society of Preventive Medicine, Public Health and Hygiene (SEMPSPH). The epicenter in the region, Brazil ranks second in the world in the number of cases and second in deaths.
Jeffrey Lazarus, epidemiologist, and researcher at the Barcelona Global Health Institute (ISGlobal) identifies three blocs of countries: “We are mainly concerned about the United States and Brazil, for their size and number of cases. There are other small countries that have issues, but in these two they are not doing what they must do in relation to international guidelines”.
In the US, there are states and cities acting better than others, he adds, but Brazil “has simply stopped publishing the number of deaths. It’s not taking it seriously”, he adds, in reference to the recent blackout in statistics. After changing its platform and restricting the numbers released, the Bolsonaro government retreated after a Supreme Court (STF) ruling.
Sub-Saharan Africa is yet another focus of concern, but not for the number of cases, which are still few when compared to other areas. “We are very surprised that it has not reached it as strongly as in other countries, and we do not know if it is because of its problems to test and monitor. I can’t say it’s doing well when there are 100 cases, because we really don’t know. They don’t have a concentration of elderly people in nursing homes as in Europe and they have a very active street life, but they also have very big cities. Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) closed relatively early.”
Finally, there is a third group of “very closed” states (North Korea, Russia, China) that is concerning, because there “we do not know what is happening”.
In the case of flights coming from places with a high level of community transmission, Spain is considering an active case search, that is, monitoring travelers through their cell phones during the days after landing. This was something done while there were few flights – of people going to Spain for work or other reasons during the confinement – but once the normal activity is resumed, it will be impossible to monitor all passengers, and this control will be based on sampling.
In addition, authorities using thermal cameras will monitor the temperature of all international passengers from July 1st, as announced on Thursday by Spanish Transport Minister José Luis Ábalos.
So far over seven million cases and 400,000 deaths have been reported worldwide. Outside Europe, the countries with the most recorded cases are the United States, which total around two million, Brazil, India, Peru, Iran, and Chile. The United States (113,820) and Brazil (40,919) lead by the number of deaths.
In Europe, almost 460,000 cases have been reported since April 23rd, of which 34 percent corresponds to the United Kingdom, 11 percent to Italy, nine percent to Spain and eight percent to Germany, according to a report by the European Center for Disease Control (ECDC) published on Thursday.
The number of new daily cases and the cumulative incidence in 14 days are dropping in the continent. Currently, it is 80 percent lower than the peak, which occurred on April 9th, according to the body.
The SEMPSPH expert points out that “little is said” about the Middle East, but Qatar has been on the decline for almost two weeks and has an accumulated incidence of 350 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. Bahrain’s is over 200. For comparison purposes, Spain began to relax containment measures when the average for its communities was well below 100 cases, he adds.
Sweden is surprisingly ranked third in Europe, behind Armenia and Belarus. It has daily increases of two or three percent in the number of cases, the expert adds.
Source: El País