What on earth is happening in Brazil??

[WindFlower92]

Over 2,000 deaths a day and no signs of letting up. Surely it has to have burnt itself out there by now? Healthy young people in ICU needing intubation. Why is it so different over there; is this their new strain? Are they vaccinating people? I just don't understand how the situation over there is still so bad, anyone able to tell me why it hasn't just burnt itself out yet?

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/13/brazil-covid-coronavirus-deaths-cases-bolsonaro-lula?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1615654327

It would be more interesting to look at excess deaths in Brazil rather than confirmed covid deaths due to reporting differences etc mentioned upthread.

The president had covid last year & went to a rally hugging & shaking hands with people, he's massively downplaying it

It’s widely reported they thought they had heard immunity due to high infection rate the first wave but the new strain isnreinfecting everyone previously who had it, so immunity doesn’t last or it circumvents immunity. That’s why the brisket should government are trying to keep numbers down here until they know if the vaccine works against it or previous immunity

*brisket should = British

This is why vaccination programmes need to be worldwide, or we will all keep going round in circles as new strains develop due the virus running unchecked, and very vulnerable people, such as the tribe mentioned, will suffer the most.

I think the Chinese vaccine they are using has proved to be only 50% effective in Brazil.
Also living conditions and population density in the cities.
I once went to the central markets in Sao Paulo, the surrounding streets and the markets were so packed with shoppers, you had to push your way through.
Lower life expectancy and smaller elderly population - more deaths in first wave for countries like us, but if the new strain is affecting younger people, they may end up worse in the end.
Even in the rural areas, there are a lot of workers living in packed dormitories e. g. for sugar or peanut harvesting and processing.

Respiratory virus seasonal patterns also differ in Brazil to the U.K as the climate is very different.

''Most Amazonian and Central West states exhibit no seasonal behavior. Among the seasonal states, influenza starts in Northeast region, spreading southbound.''

Ref: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6307116/

If there are no containment measures, a climate that supports respiratory virus circulation year round in populations who live in those regions, many people who live in poverty with limited healthcare and a new variant that can purportedly both re-infect people, enter cells more effectively and reproduce more effectively, it is not surprising that they have so many cases (and I expect the cases we know about are a fraction of the true figure).

The cases of the Brazilian variant that got into the country without having to quarantine by taking flights via Paris have transmitted the variant to close contacts and family (the Chief Medical/Scientific officer said they had quarantined fully). Let's hope those close contacts have self-isolated from the start and in full.

Choconuttola that sounds v alarming re possible new variants emerging.

My understanding is that “burn itself out” is not applicable to this coronavirus. For a virus to do that it needs to have low to moderate transmissibility and high rapid fatality rate. Basically it doesn’t necessarily spread like wildfire but it does kill very quickly when people do catch it - so they get sick and die before they even have a chance to pass it on. Ebola falls into this category - it’s not you need to get very close to a person with symptoms, it’s direct contact. But for those that do catch it, the fatality rate is high - like 50%, maybe higher.

Covid 19 OTOH is highly transmissible but rarely fatal. So an infected person can easily wander around either asymptomatic or mildly ill and pass it on. They probably won’t die. And 6-8 months after they’ve recovered, their immunity disappears and they’re ready to catch it again or a variant of it, and pass that on. It’s very unlikely that a virus with these characteristics will “burn out”.

@NOTANUM

There was a Times (I think) article last week about how the developing world are faring. Take India and Brazil - both developing countries with extremes of rich and poor, countries that are surfing ahead in development, have crowded living quarters etc. However the death rate in India (or Philippines or wherever) is a fraction of that of Brazil. The article pointed towards the much higher proportion of obese people in Brazil compared to Asian countries. This is definitely a contributing factor in the UK, US and Western countries.

India were really struggling with Covid last year. They reached 100,000 deaths by the autumn despite it being slow to really hit there compared to others. They've got a better grip on it since.