Brazil faces new wave of pandemic amid shortage of COVID-19 vaccines

Amid the new wave of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, Brazil has seen a steady increase in the number of cases of the new coronavirus in recent weeks. This is the second wave of the pandemic this year in the country.

According to vastly underestimated data from the Ministry of Health of the government of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party – PT), COVID-19 deaths rose from 229 in July to 334 in August, while cases more than doubled during that period, from 17,964 to 36,970. The increase was also identified by the Todos pela Saúde Institute (ITpS), which noted that the test positivity rate reached 23 percent in mid-August, an increase of 10 percentage points in one month.

Cases continued to rise in September. Data released Thursday showed that COVID-19 cases rose from 7,180 in the epidemiological week of August 25 to 31 to 16,722 from September 1 to 7, while deaths fell from 89 to 62 during the same period. In total, Brazil has recorded 38.9 million cases and 713,000 deaths from COVID-19.

The last two InfoGripe bulletins, published by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) on September 5 and 12, also indicated a long-term upward trend in the number of cases and, consequently, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 17 of the 27 Brazilian states, in particular “due to the large population movement between the state of São Paulo (the most populated state in Brazil and one of the hotspots of the current wave) and other regions of the country.”

InfoGripe’s September 12 newsletter also pointed to a higher incidence of COVID-19 cases and deaths caused by SARS. It reported that 32% of cases and 52% of deaths from SARS in the last four epidemiological weeks were caused by COVID-19, significantly more than those caused by respiratory syncytial virus (9% and 4%), influenza A (14% and 25%), and influenza B (3% and 4%).

According to the Ministry of Health, in 2024 there were about 112,000 hospitalizations and 7,000 deaths due to SARS, 25% of which were due to COVID-19.

COVID-19 is more than just a respiratory illness, though. Growing evidence suggests the devastating impact that SARS-CoV-2 can have on various organs and body systems long after the initial infection, a condition also known as long COVID.

In an interview given in mid-July Capturing BrazilMonica de Bolle, a senior researcher at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and an expert in immunology, said: “SARS-CoV-2 is a systemic virus. It is characterized by respiratory disease, so laypeople understand it as a respiratory virus, but SARS-CoV-2 is not a pure and simple respiratory virus, it settles anywhere in our body.”

This, in turn, has been completely ignored by Lula’s government. According to de Bolle, “In Brazil, there is nothing, nothing that the MS (Ministry of Health) has done to properly take care of these people (with long COVID). There is even a lack of training, because the SUS (National Health System) doctors do not necessarily know how to recognize long COVID.”

Thanks to their unimpeded circulation, new variants of the novel coronavirus have emerged and spread in Brazil and around the world. In recent months, the global increase in cases has been driven by the KP.2 and KP.3 variants, which have been called FLiRT variants, in reference to mutations in important places on the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, that make them more contagious.

The KP.2 and KP.3 variants are derived from the JN.1 variant of concern, which was responsible for a global wave of cases in late 2023 and early 2024, including in Brazil. In recent months, the LB.1 variant, which is also derived from JN.1, has begun to spread around the world. It has already overtaken JN.1 in Brazil, and data from the last quarter (May, June, and July) shows that LB.1 accounts for 34% of cases.

The fact that COVID-19 continues to raise concerns in its fifth year of the pandemic is evidence of the utter failure of capitalist governments and ruling elites around the world to provide a scientific response to a virus whose effects can be devastating even to high-performing athletes, as recently witnessed at the Paris Olympics.

In Brazil, Lula’s government has deepened the “COVID forever” policies of fascist former president Jair Bolsonaro. Since taking office early last year, he has abandoned the most basic measures to monitor the pandemic, such as mass testing and monitoring for SARS-CoV-2 in sewage. Meanwhile, the government continues to misinform the public about the science of the pandemic and pursues a COVID-19 vaccination campaign that has been a complete fiasco.

Test positivity rate for SARS-CoV-2 (in green) and other respiratory viruses in Brazil from August 19, 2023 to August 17, 2024. (Photo: Todos pela Saude Institute (ITpS))

Without warning the Brazilian population that the country was experiencing a new wave of the pandemic, Lula’s government’s Health Ministry posted a series of recommendations on Instagram on September 7 aimed at “preventing” COVID-19. “The first and most effective (action) against severe forms of the disease and hospitalizations is vaccination,” according to the Health Ministry post, followed by “physical distancing in case of suspicion,” “hand hygiene” and “cleaning and disinfecting environments.”

In the comments section, users of the social networking site responded with outrage to the government’s publication, which promised to be guided by science in its alleged “reconstruction” of Brazil after years of destruction wrought by the Bolsonaro government.

One of them reads: “Why don’t you mention MASKS???? Masks saved us from the vaccine and now they’re not even mentioned? Surreal and absurd.” Another comment called attention to the fact that Lula’s government is ignoring the science on COVID-19 transmission: “Hand hygiene… Environmental cleaning, physical distancing?! What is this? COVID is transmitted through aerosols and the only way to prevent it is with effective masks and an air-filtering environment! This is a lot of disinformation, they are playing with us!!!”

Although Lula’s government has followed the strategy of the world’s ruling elites to limit the response to COVID-19 to vaccinations, even that is insufficient and fraught with problems. Late last year, it ruled out universal COVID-19 vaccinations, which are offered to children aged six months to five years, the elderly and other specific groups. However, reports of a lack of COVID-19 vaccines in health facilities have been increasingly appearing in Brazilian media.

In Minas Gerais, Brazil’s second most populous state, the daily number About the pace reported on September 7 that 52 percent of the state’s 211 cities do not have a vaccine against the XBB subvariant of the Omicron vaccine, which is the latest COVID-19 vaccine purchased by Lula’s government. In São Paulo, a city of 12 million that is the capital of the state of the same name, a report on the g1 website on September 6 titled “Parents report lack of COVID-19 vaccine for children in health centers in the capital” found that “of 164 health centers in the southern part of the city, 79 do not have a COVID-19 vaccine.”

In early May, Lula’s government began a new phase of its COVID-19 vaccination campaign, distributing some 10 million doses of Moderna’s monovalent vaccine against Omicron’s XBB.1.5 subvariant. Only 2 million doses have been administered so far. Further exposing Lula’s government’s neglect comes from its announcement at the start of the campaign that it aimed to “vaccinate at least 70 million people” this year, according to the Health Ministry’s website.

In this context, the use by the Lula government of Independence Day, September 7, as a supposed celebration of the resumption of the vaccination campaign, especially among children, is completely hypocritical. In a report in S. Paulo’s Folha In early July, the director of the Brazilian Society of Vaccination (SBIm), Isabella Ballalai, said that, contrary to what the Ministry of Health claims, “it is not just a question of disinformation, fake news, etc. The biggest factor (in vaccine hesitancy) is the lack of information. We also know how important access to doses is.”

IN Capturing Brazil interview mentioned above, Monica de Bolle reinforced Ballalai’s observation, denouncing the “duplicity” and “ambiguity” of members of Lula’s government, including Health Minister Nísia Trindade, who has condemned the Bolsonaro government’s criminal response to the pandemic but “now acts as if the virus were less important,” which she said “contributes to further increases in vaccine hesitancy.”

As a loyal representative of Brazil’s corporate and financial overlords, Lula’s government has overseen the destruction of the public health system and other social rights won by the working class. As demonstrated by the government’s neglect of the pandemic and the recent freezing of nearly 10 percent of the health budget to provide for Lula’s “new fiscal framework” and “zero deficit goal” for this year, any illusions that he might be forced to change his right-wing trajectory have been completely dashed.

The growing strikes that have broken out in Brazil, especially in various sectors of federal workers against the Lula government, must raise the banner of a scientific response to end the COVID-19 pandemic. For this, it is necessary for the Brazilian working class to unite with its class brothers and sisters around the world in a common struggle for international socialism.

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Brazil faces new wave of pandemic amid shortage of COVID-19 vaccines

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