Covid-19: Transmission Rate in Brazil Drops by More Than Half in Five Months

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The contagion rate of the coronavirus disease in Brazil fell from 3.0 in the first months of the pandemic in the country to 1.08 in early August, according to data from the latest survey by Imperial College London in the United Kingdom.

The rate had been steadily declining, reaching 2.8 in late April and 1.01 in June, the lowest ever achieved by Brazil and close to the pandemic control level.

The figure, also known as Rt, is an indicator of the average number of people who become infected by an infectious person. The rate calculated this week points to every 100 infected people transmitting the coronavirus to another 108. Although it has dropped, the data shows that Covid-19 continues to grow in the country, albeit at a slow pace, according to Imperial College rankings.

The reasons for this decline are the adoption of measures to reduce the circulation of people, social isolation, such as closing schools and businesses, and prevention, such as the wearing of masks, hand hygiene and a minimum distance of 2 meters between people. On the other hand, relaxing these measures may increase this rate.

For the epidemic to be considered controlled, the transmission rate must fall below one, i.e., when the average number of people contaminated by an infected person is below one, which points to a reduction in contagion rate. This rate has been achieved by a number of countries in Europe, Asia and Africa, according to the latest version of the Imperial College weekly report, which contains data from 65 countries with active coronavirus transmission.

The Brazilian rate is lower than that of countries such as Canada (1.09), Colombia (1.09), Peru (1.09), India (1.12), France (1.16), Argentina (1.16) and Australia (1.28). On the other hand, it is higher than Germany (0.72), Sweden (0.55), Spain (0.84), Portugal (0.85), Belgium (0.93), Italy (0.94) and Chile (0.94).

Currently, Brazil counts 2,912,442 cases and over 100,000 deaths from the disease. On Friday, August 7th, the rolling average of new notifications of the disease stood at 42,851 and of new deaths at 1,014. The weekly rolling average is based on the sum of the number of cases and deaths over the past seven days, divided by seven – which allows for a better assessment by cancelling out daily variations in recording and submitting data by public health agencies, an issue that occurs mainly on weekends.

Source: Veja

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