According to Mandetta and experts, the peak of Covid-19 in Brazil will be in April and May and the virus may remain circulating until September.
It was found in a report signed by Luiz Henrique Mandetta, Minister of Health and health experts, that in Brazil, the peak of Covid-19 will occur in April and May and that the fight against the virus will continue in the country until September.
This Tuesday (7), the disclosure of the text was published in the “Magazine of the Brazilian Society of Tropical Medicine” and released by the scientific news agency Bori.
The text comments on how Brazil has been facing the pandemic, brings the chronology of the actions of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the country. Warning about the autumn and winter season, when there is a higher occurrence of respiratory diseases. The report also mentions measures such as social isolation and the use of masks as ways to control the pandemic in the country.
“Although Brazil is trying to implement measures to reduce the number of cases, mainly focused on social isolation. An increase in Covid-19 cases is expected in the coming months. Several mathematical models have shown that the virus will be circulating until mid-September, with an important peak of cases in April and May”, says the document, without going into detail about numbers.
“Thus, there are concerns regarding the availability of intensive care units (ICU) and mechanical ventilators required for patients hospitalized with Covid-19, as well as the availability of specific diagnostic tests,” the report points out.
Social isolation and use of masks
One of the measures highlighted to contain and prevent the spread of the coronavirus is social isolation.
"Social isolation is a measure that should be suggested at the beginning [of the emergence of cases] to flatten the epidemiological curve with the least possible economic impact", say the experts in the report.
“If social distancing is effective [to contain the pandemic] (…), the economic impact can be mitigated when the current Covid-19 pandemic is controlled”, it says in the document.
The use of masks also appears as one of the preventive measures that can help to reduce the spread of the pandemic. In Asia, the use of masks is culturally accepted and common, and there is also no custom of kissing hugs, as in Brazil. “These differences can be decisive in the evolution of pandemics”, states the document.
Authors
Julio Croda, infectologist and main author of the report, left his position as director of the Department of Immunization and Communicable Diseases in March and is a researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (MS) and the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS). It also signs Wanderson Kleber de Oliveira, Secretary of Health Surveillance, among others.
