São Paulo State Government Extends Quarantine to July 14th

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The São Paulo government has extended the state’s quarantine until July 14th. The announcement was made early on Friday afternoon by Governor João Doria at a press conference to release an update on the flexibilities in the cities, according to the economic recovery plan.

“Today we will announce the sixth quarantine period, which starts on June 29th and runs until July 14th. We are completing 100 days of quarantine next July 1st,” said Doria.

Under the new rating, the capital of São Paulo and 14 municipalities in Greater São Paulo will enter the yellow stage and may open restaurants, bars, and beauty salons.

However, the release should only occur after July 6th, as recommended by the Coronavirus Contingency Center.

São Paulo Mayor Bruno Covas said he will follow the guidelines and that establishments will only be allowed to reopen once the city’s yellow stage is confirmed and the protocols with the sectors are signed.

“The recommendation given by the Contingency Center is that, although the city is now in the yellow stage, we should wait a week. Therefore, we await our evaluation next Friday so that the municipality can open to activities the yellow stage allows,” said Covas.

Municipalities in the yellow stage will have autonomy to decide the date of release, but the government believes that municipal officials will comply with the State Health Committee’s advice.

“I have spoken with representatives of the two consortiums, the ABC and the southwest, I understand that they will comply, but it is up to them. I will use this question to urge everyone to follow this resumption in Greater São Paulo with caution,” said Marco Vinholi, Regional Development Secretary.

Red Interior

However, most of the state has either returned to, or remains in, the red stage, the most restrictive of all. State Secretary of Economic Development, Patricia Ellen, argued that this scenario is in line with the projections made by the state management.

“In the interior, as was expected, there is a very significant presence and increase of the epidemic, which translates into the number of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, and that is why much work is being done to control the pandemic and to improve hospital capacity,” said Economic Development Secretary Patricia Ellen.

The regions of Araçatuba, Rio Preto, Sorocaba and Bauru have reverted to the red stage. The regions around Marília, Ribeirão Preto, Presidente Prudente and Registro have not progressed and are also operating only essential services.

Regions lowered to the red stage:
Araçatuba
Rio Preto
Sorocaba
Bauru
Franca

Regions remaining in the red stage:
Marília
Ribeirão Preto
Presidente Prudente
Registro

Orange Stage:
Barretos
Part of Greater São Paulo

Yellow Stage:
Embu
Embu-Guaçu
Itapecerica da serra
Juquitiba
São Lourenço da Serra
Taboão da Serra
Vargem grande paulista
Diadema
Mauá
Ribeirão pires
Rio Grande da Serra
Santo André
São Bernardo do Campo
São Caetano do Sul
São Paulo

City of São Paulo data

The progress towards less restrictive measures occurs in the week in which the São Paulo capital had a record 19,000 new daily cases of coronavirus, last Wednesday, June 24th. The municipal administration justified the number as being only a correction of the backlog after instability in the Health Ministry’s system.

Since the start of the week, the government has maintained that the epidemic in the city is under control and that the interior has become the epicenter of the disease in the state, ahead of the capital in the number of new cases. However, the state counts 25,000 fewer cases of Covid-19 in the city of São Paulo than the city government. Paulo Menezes, a member of the Contingency Center, said the difference should be investigated jointly by the municipal and state teams and corrected.

However, the discrepancy persisted in Friday’s press conference, which was attended by both the state and municipal governments. According to state government data, the capital showed improvement in ICU bed occupancy and variation in the number of deaths – criteria that have more weight in the account – and was reclassified in the yellow stage.

Regarding the 25,000 case discrepancy, Social Development Secretary Patricia Ellen said it would be “double data” that the state corrects this in its balance.

“There was talk of a difference in case data between the state and capital figures of about 25,000 cases. I would like to remind you that the state receives information from all municipalities, but it cleans up these data, so all double counts that are performed between systems are removed when crossing the information from Sivep flu and e-SUS VE. This has been done since the start of the pandemic.

This number does not change the rating of any region because the case delta of our figure calculated in relation to the case delta of the capital is very similar,” said the Secretary.

Subsequently, however, during the same press conference, Mayor Bruno Covas released updated data for the capital through June 25th . According to the city hall, the city of São Paulo counts 142,750 confirmed cases of Covid-19, and 6,792 confirmed deaths. The state data in the same period point to 17,311 confirmed cases and 6,794 deaths in the capital. That is, the difference of confirmed cases in the two databases rose to 25,439.

São Paulo Plan

To begin the reopening on June 1st, the government divided the state into 17 Regional Health Divisions (DRS). Greater São Paulo was subdivided into six smaller regions, one for the capital and another five for each group of cities in the metropolitan region. The relaxation of quarantine is performed differently in each of these regions.

The five criteria that underlie the regions’ rating are:

• ICU (Intensive Care Unit) bed occupancy;
• total beds per 100,000 inhabitants;
• variance of new hospitalizations compared to the preceding week;
• variance of new confirmed cases, compared to the preceding week;
• variance of new confirmed deaths, compared to the preceding week.

The criterion that weighs most heavily in the rating of each region is the variation of new hospitalizations (weight 4), followed by the ICU occupancy rate (weight 3). Experts criticized the plan when it was launched, as they disagree with the different weights and scores of each criterion.

These criteria define in which of the five reopening stages the regions are:

Stage 1 – Red: Maximum alert
Stage 2 – Orange: Control
Stage 3 – Yellow: Flexibility
Stage 4 – Green: Partial opening
Stage 5 – Blue: Normal controlled

According to the stage, each region may release the opening of different economic sectors closed by the quarantine.

Source: G1