Deaths from covid-19 increased for the sixth consecutive week in the Americas, reaching 202 per hour, despite the drop in new infections, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on Wednesday (16).
New cases are down 31% from the previous week, but are still very high (3.3 million), and deaths are up 5.6% (more than 34,000), PAHO director Carissa Etienne said at a press conference. virtual press.
Deaths increased mainly in the United States (17,000), but also in Central America, Brazil and the Caribbean countries.
Covid-19 has been deadlier in the Americas than in any other region, with more than 2.5 million deaths over the course of the pandemic and more than 100,000 in the first month of 2022 alone.
For Sylvain Alighieri, in charge of monitoring the pandemic at PAHO, affiliated with the World Health Organization (WHO), this difference between the increase in deaths and the decrease in the number of cases is due to the fact that “it can take three to four weeks or more from the onset of illness to hospitalization and worsening of illness and possibly death”.
In addition, when the highly contagious omicron variant arrived, the appropriate tools were not applied in the region: people had relaxed precautions, traveled and gathered indoors, often without a mask, added Etienne.
– The Djokovic case –
In all countries in the region, more than half of the deaths correspond to people over 65 years of age.
However, age is not the only factor. It also influences the fact that many have not been vaccinated and “continue to fill hospitals and intensive care beds”, said the director.
Fourteen countries and territories in the region have already immunized more than 70% of the eligible population.
This is the goal established by the World Health Organization (WHO) and to achieve it in the Americas it is necessary to ensure that at least 20 million more people receive all their doses of anti-covid vaccines.
According to PAHO, 100 million doses were delivered – 30% of them donated – to 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, thanks to the work of its Revolving Fund, in coordination with the Covax mechanism, which negotiates the price of immunizations so that all countries can have access.
Thirty percent of the doses were donated.
“We need to act quickly and decisively to save lives. This will not be the last variant, and the future of the pandemic is still extremely uncertain. The decisions we make today could have a knock-on effect in the coming months and years,” warned Etienne.
The main characteristic of this pandemic is uncertainty and “our objective during 2022 is to move from an acute pandemic response to a sustained control”, with public safety measures, vaccination and clinical case management. However, “drugs have zero impact on transmission and do not end the pandemic per se”, recalls Alighieri.
The misinformation and reticence of some people to get vaccinated bring problems.
Jarbas Barbosa, deputy director of PAHO, regretted the case of tennis player Novak Djokovic, who decided not to vaccinate himself against covid-19.
“It’s a shame to see a person who has access to information, who can check all the information he wants, using the argument of ‘I want to protect my body’ as if it were just an individual aspect”, said Barbosa, ensuring that vaccines “are safe and effective” and “are saving millions of lives”.
“It’s a shame (…) because in addition to (the vaccine) being an individual protection, it’s a collective pact”, he said, reinforcing that public authorities must continually inform because every day “false information comes out on social media”.
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