MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

New COVID-19 deaths reported in Brazil

As the number of COVID-19 cases rises, facemasks are once again mandatory in more parts of the country

Brazilian health authorities Sunday confirmed 20,385 new cases of COVID-19 nationwide and 57 deaths in the last 24 hours, for a total of 35,188,586 detections and 689,536 fatalities since the onset of the pandemic.

The latest bulletin from the Health Ministry also showed that 34,205,157 people have recovered from the infection (97.2% of the total) and 293,393 patients are being monitored.

Status updates from the States of Ceará, Espírito Santo, Goiás, Maranhão, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Paraíba, Piauí, Roraima, Santa Catarina, and Tocantins, as well as the Federal District, were still pending at the time of the newest sanitary release.

The State of São Paulo leads the number of cases, with 6,190,045, followed by Minas Gerais (3.911 million) and Paraná (2.77 million). The lowest number of cases is registered in Acre (153,687), followed by Roraima (178,542) and Amapá (181,168).

São Paulo also has the highest number of deaths (176,165), followed by Rio de Janeiro (76,054) and Minas Gerais (63,950), while Acre (2,029), Amapá (2,165), and Roraima (2,176) have the lowest number of deaths.

So far 493 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been applied, including 180 million first doses and 163 million second doses. Single-dose injections have also been administered to over 5 million people.

Vaccination posts have been particularly active during Qatar 2022 football World Cup games featuring Brazil in Manaus, where some 300 doses of vaccine were applied Monday in an initiative from of the Amazonas Health Surveillance Foundation - Dr. Rosemary Costa Pinto (FVS-RCP), linked to the Amazonas State Health Secretariat (SES-AM), together with the Manaus Municipal Health Secretariat (Semsa/Manaus).

Last Thursday during Brazil's first World Cup appearance, 564 people statewide updated their vaccination scheme. Vaccines from manufacturers Janssen, Pfizer, CoronaVac, and AstraZeneca were available.

Brazil has been gradually returning to COVID-19 protocols. First, mandatory facemasks on airplanes and at airports were reinstated effective Nov. 25. In fact, the wearing of masks had been recommended since last August, especially for people with flu symptoms and those most vulnerable, such as immunocompromised patients, pregnant women, and the elderly.

A day later, the city of São Paulo, the largest in South America with 12 million inhabitants, decided to return to mandatory masks on public transport. The measure has also been recommended by the State of São Paulo for the rest of the municipalities. The mask had ceased to be mandatory on Sept. 9.

“The State Government and the São Paulo City Hall decided to resume the mandatory use of masks in public transport as of this Saturday, after a technical analysis of the Management Council of the State Secretariat of Science, Research and Development in Health against the advance of cases of COVID-19,” authorities said in a statement.

The Government of the State of São Paulo also called on the population to complete their vaccination cycles. The Board of Directors of the State Secretariat of Science, Research and Development in Health warned of a “significant increase in the transmission of Sars-Cov-2, which is mainly reflected in the indicators of hospitalizations for COVID-19 in infirmaries and intensive care, which in the last 14 days show a growth of 156 percent and 97.5 percent, respectively, reaching a daily average of more than 400 new admissions.”