Increase in covid cases leads cities in Brazil to recommend wearing masks

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The increase in cases of Covid-19 is leading Brazilian cities to once again mandate or recommend the use of masks indoors.

The list includes at least one capital, Curitiba, and more cities in the interior of the states such as Londrina (Paraná), São Bernardo do Campo (São Paulo), Poços de Caldas (Minas Gerais), and Canoas (Rio Grande do Sul).

In Santa Catarina, epidemiological surveillance agencies issued, on Monday, May 23, a note reinforcing the use of the mask against Covid-19 after discharge in hospitalizations of children and babies.

Some schools in São Paulo City have also started to require the use of the mask again.

Most municipalities have issued decrees requiring or recommending the use only in schools; others have also included health establishments, schools, public transportation, and restaurants.

“In reality, we have never abandoned the masks – the masks are no longer mandatory, but there is a recommendation, in all places, and we have never stopped recommending masks for the more fragile population,” says Alberto Chebabo, president of the Brazilian Society of Infectology.

The doctor reinforces that these populations should keep using the mask – especially in places with a higher risk of infection, such as closed or crowded places.

For the geneticist and pediatrician Salmo Raskin, from Genetika Laboratory, in Curitiba, the masks may be the only tool at the moment to avoid an infection or reinfection by Covid-19.

The vaccines we have do not prevent infection, and other vaccines capable of this, have yet to be released.

“We don’t know how long our immunity lasts through the vaccine. We will know when we start seeing an increase in hospitalization in people who have had, for example, three doses of the vaccine,” the epidemiologist Ethel Maciel, a professor at the Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES), points out.

“That’s why, while we are in a pandemic, it is still important to talk about the need to wear masks, avoid crowds, and use filtering masks when we are indoors – what we have been talking about since the beginning,” he concludes.

With information from G1