THE second wave of covid-19 in Brazil it started, according to some experts, in the year 2020, leading to a frightening increase in the number of cases in early 2021. The new wave arrived not only increasing the numbers of the disease, but also increasing the number of deaths and collapsing the health system in several places in Brazil. In many regions of the country, patients died without getting places in ICUs, both in public and private hospitals.
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What is covid-19 and why is it considered a pandemic?
covid-19 is a serious illness caused by a virus from the family of coronavirus, called SARS-CoV-2. The disease affects the respiratory system, triggering symptoms such as fever, dry cough and tiredness. Other symptoms of the disease are loss or reduction of smell and taste, difficulty breathing and diarrhea.
You first cases of the disease were registered in China, in the year 2019, and covid-19 quickly spread to various regions of the planet. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the
pandemic of covid-19, thus indicating that the disease had spread to different continents and had sustained transmission from one person to another. When we talk about pandemics, therefore, we are not referring to the severity of the disease, but to the geographic distribution.What does pandemic second wave mean?
When the pandemic of çovid-19 began, the expectation for the rate of contaminated to decrease was great. However, after the reduction of cases, there was a new increase in contaminated. Thus, a second wave of the covid-19 pandemic emerged.
“Second wave” is an expression used in reference to the appearance of new outbreaks after an initial drop in the number of infected by the virus. This second wave was already predicted and, from the beginning, it was recommended that, even with the drop in the number of cases, measures to prevent the disease should not be relaxed. What was observed around the world, however, was a reduction in measures to combat the disease, associated with a false sense of security and lack of adequate information on the subject.
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Second wave of covid-19 in Brazil
The second wave of covid-19 was observed first in other parts of the world, as in Europe; however, many were still skeptical whether in Brazil there would really be a new increase in cases. This is because, while in Europe there was a fall and a subsequent increase in cases; in Brazil, we were still experiencing the first wave, due to the fact that we had not managed to stabilize the number of people infected by the virus.
Researchers claim that the second wave if started in Brazil around November 2020. The upward trend was observed from the calculation of the basic reproduction number (Rt), which indicates how many people will be infected by an infected person over the time that person remains contagious. This index helps to see how quickly the disease is transmitted. When the Rt is above 1, there is an indication of an expansion of the pandemic and, when it is below, it means that the transmission of the disease is losing intensity, that is, the pandemic is contained.
According to Technical Note — 22/11/2020 Situation of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Brazilil, developed by Brazilian researchers and published on the website ÇoronaVgoings, Brazil had a peak in the months of July to September 2020 and, subsequently, there was a decrease in the number of new cases for weeks. However, the numbers grew again.
The technical note reports the situation in the country at that time, stating that “the situation in Brazil has deteriorated sharply in the last two weeks, and the beginning of a second wave of case growth is already evident in almost all states, particularly worryingly in the most populous regions of the parents".
The second wave of the disease in Brazil arrived bringing a large trail of deaths, causing Brazil entered one of the timess more seriouss of the pandemic. The number of deaths among Brazilians was much higher than that observed in the first wave of the disease. In Manaus, for example, in early 2021, hospitals were overcrowded and patients ran out of oxygen, causing the city to reach record highs. But it wasn't just Manaus that suffered from the second wave, there are reports throughout Brazil of people who lost their lives even before they got a place in the ICU, which highlights a collapse in our system of health.
despite new virus variants are influencing increased contamination, one of the main reasons for the increase in cases, according to specialists, is the failure to comply with measures to protect the disease, such as social distancing.
Read too: Social distancing — how effective is this measure?
What must be done so that other waves do not happen?
When we saw the increase in cases occurring in other parts of the world, we knew that the second wave would hit Brazil. The question went from “Will there be a new wave?” to “When will the second wave start?”. many people stopped security measures, causing the second wave to arrive even more devastating in our country.
It is also worth noting that, while Brazil is facing the second wave, other countries, like France, face a third wave., showing that other waves may occur and that we should be prepared for when that happens. Thus, dwe must adopt measures to brake the transmission and, in this way, not face as disastrous consequences as we have observed.
For this, it is essential that we do not neglect preventive measures for the disease. Avoiding agglomerations, using masks and always washing your hands, for example, are measures that should never be forgotten. Also, it is the investment in vaccines for the whole population, in order to interrupt the transmission cycle and also prevent the emergence of new variants, which are also related to the emergence of new waves.
By Vanessa Sardinha dos Santos
Biology teacher
