Brazil hits rolling death average record for 9th consecutive day (March 7th) amid vaccination slowdown

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil recorded 79,237 new covid-19 cases and 1,054 deaths on Sunday, March 7th, according to the media outlet consortium’s report. According to the survey, the country now totals 11,018,557 infections and 265,500 deaths caused by the pandemic.

The data are provided by the media outlet consortium report, an initiative comprising O GLOBO, Extra, G1, Folha de S. Paulo, UOL, and O Estado de S. Paulo. The outlets collect information from state health secretariats published daily until 8 PM.

Last week was the most lethal since the start of the pandemic, with over 10,183 deaths in seven days. The rolling average of deaths record was beaten eight consecutive times.

The rolling average of cases, also recorded in the report, stands at 67,061, 42% higher than 14 days ago. The rolling average of deaths reached 1,497 on Monday, also 42% higher than recorded in the same period.

The “7-day rolling average” measures the figure for the day and the six preceding days. It is compared with the average of two weeks earlier, to determine if there is an upward, stability, or downward trend in cases or deaths. The calculation is a statistical device to enable determining data trends by offsetting obstacles caused by weekends, when the reporting of deaths is lower due to a shortage of on-duty staff.

Sixteen states updated their Covid-19 vaccination data on Monday. Nationwide, 8,220,820 people have been immunized with the first dose, equivalent to 3.88% of the Brazilian population. The second dose of the vaccine was administered to 2,718,147 people, or 1.28% of the national population.

Vaccination against Covid-19 caused the number of deaths caused by the disease to plummet among seniors over 90 years old in São Paulo. In the state capital, the number of deaths of people in this age group dropped 70% in February, compared to the preceding month, according to the Municipal Health Secretariat. In the first month of the year, 127 lives were lost. In February, only 38.

After the Ministry of Health announced a reduction in the expected Covid-19 vaccine doses to be delivered in March, the governor of Piauí, Wellington Dias, said he will have a meeting this Monday with Minister Eduardo Pazuello and the Fiocruz team.

Dias, who is a representative of the Governors’ Forum, said that he will ask why the foundation is unable to produce all the AstraZeneca laboratory vaccine doses it had initially planned.

“From our agenda with Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello, on February 17th, Fiocruz committed to deliver 16.9 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in March. There was a reduction of 50%, including this AstraZeneca vaccine from South Korea, from the WHO [World Health Organization] consortium,” said Dias on a video released by his press office.

On Saturday, the Ministry of Health released a new schedule for the delivery of vaccine doses and confirmed a further reduction in the expected delivery of immunizers in March. Now, the estimate is that 30 million doses will be available, excluding the 8 million Covaxin doses from the Indian Bharat Biotech laboratory, which has not yet applied for emergency use authorization from the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency.

A reduction from 46 million to 38 million doses had already been announced, largely due to a delay in the delivery of doses from AstraZeneca.

Source: O Globo