According to Mandetta and experts, the peak of Covid-19 in Brazil will be in April and May and the virus could 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 text was published in the “Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Medicina Tropical” and released by the scientific news agency Bori.
The text discusses how Brazil has been dealing with the pandemic, and provides a chronology of the actions taken by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the country. It warns about the fall and winter seasons, when respiratory diseases are more common. 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 a significant peak in cases in April and May,” the document says, without going into details about the numbers.
“Therefore, there are concerns regarding the availability of intensive care units (ICUs) and mechanical ventilators needed for hospitalized patients with Covid-19, as well as the availability of specific diagnostic tests,” the report highlights.
Social isolation and use of masks
One of the most important measures 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,” the experts state in the report.
“If social distancing is effective [in containing the pandemic] (…), the economic impact could be mitigated when the current Covid-19 pandemic is controlled,” the document says.
The use of masks also appears as one of the preventive measures that can help reduce the spread of the pandemic. In Asia, the use of masks is culturally accepted and common, and there is also no custom of hugging and kissing, as in Brazil. “These differences can be decisive in the evolution of pandemics,” the document states.
Authors
Julio Croda, an infectious disease specialist and the report's lead author, 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). Wanderson Kleber de Oliveira, Secretary of Health Surveillance, is also a signatory, among others.