As the US looks ahead to a summer that is likely to be pretty “normal,” Brazil is still struggling to contain the pandemic. Just Tuesday, Brazil recorded some 1,700 deaths from COVID, their highest single-day death toll. The Brazilian healthcare system is on the brink, even as many in the country are eschewing the safety protocols that could keep them healthy during this unprecedented health disaster.
Brazil is the only country to face a major COVID outbreak early in the pandemic that is still seeing cases and death numbers this high. A more contagious variant of the virus is loose in the country, and is running roughshod over the South American nation.
“The acceleration of the epidemic in various states is leading to the collapse of their public and private hospital systems, which may soon become the case in every region of Brazil,” the Brazilian association of health secretaries reported in a statement. “Sadly, the anemic rollout of vaccines and the slow pace at which they’re becoming available still does not suggest that this scenario will be reversed in the short term.”
Why This Is a Problem for the World
The variant loose in Brazil is not just more contagious. There is some indication that it could even be able to infect people who have already recovered from other variants. This, coupled with the uncertainty over whether existing vaccines are effective against it, makes many experts worried. The more a virus is freely able to move through a population, the more chances it has to mutate. Those mutations, should they jump the country’s borders, can then spark yet another round of a pandemic.
And, indeed, the Brazilian variant of the virus has left its country of origin and has been detected in over 20 other countries, including the United States. This has led many health experts to beg world leaders to not let their guard down: the world has come so far in fighting the disease, and now it’s close to breaking out with a new variant all over again.
Vaccines Are the Answer
Currently, the best answer we have to “how to end the pandemic” is by a critical mass of the population receiving the vaccine. That way, it becomes much less likely that people develop serious illness, and, in turn, that much harder for the virus to spread from person to person. As soon as you’re able to, it’s advised that everyone who is eligible for the vaccine get it.
