Brazil Covid Rolling Average Peaks; ANVISA Demands More Data from Vaccine Makers

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The rolling daily average of Covid-19 cases broke a new record on Tuesday, January 14th, reaching 56,453. This means that over the past seven days, this was the average of positive diagnoses for the novel coronavirus.

In the past 24 hours, 68,656 cases of the disease have been reported, raising the total number of Sars-CoV-2 infections in Brazil to 8,326,115. There were also 1,151 deaths recorded, totaling 207,160 lives lost. The rolling average of deaths per day has reached 1,000.

The “7-day rolling average” is an average between the daily figure and the preceding six days. It is compared with the two-week average to determine if there is an upward trend, stability, or a decline in cases or deaths. The calculation is a statistical resource to understand the data trend by suppressing the weekends’ backlog, when notifications of deaths are lower due to a shortage of staff on duty.

The states that most reported new Covid-19 cases were São Paulo (13,710), Minas Gerais (8,694) and Paraná (5,777). The states reporting the highest number of deaths were São Paulo (304), Rio de Janeiro (200) and Minas Gerais (134).

The data are from the media consortium comprising O GLOBO, Extra, G1, Folha de S.Paulo, UOL and O Estado de S. Paulo and include data from state Health Secretariats released daily up to 8 PM.

The National Health Regulatory Agency (ANVISA) is demanding data from Fiocruz and the Butantan to approve a vaccine. ANVISA on Thursday sent a letter to Fiocruz and the Butantan Institute demanding the submission of pending data for analysis by the agency for the emergency use authorization of vaccines against Covid-19 from AstraZeneca/University of Oxford (United Kingdom) and Sinovac Biotech. In a note, ANVISA states that the ten-day period initially provided may be extended in case the information is not submitted.

Earlier this week, the agency announced that it will decide whether or not to grant emergency use authorization for the immunizers by Sunday, January 17th. However, the two institutions that applied for authorization have not yet submitted all the required data for analysis. According to ANVISA, there is a lack of “essential and conditioning” data for the requests to be analyzed.

Although no vaccines have yet been approved by ANVISA, Minister of Health Eduardo Pazuello said that vaccination in Brazil should begin next Wednesday, January 20th, according to mayors who attended a meeting. The precise date was provided by Pazuello himself and approximately 140 municipal leaders attended the meeting.

The announcement was confirmed by the chairman of the National Mayors Front (FNP), and former Mayor of Campinas Jonas Donizette. The group comprises over 100 local leaders.

The Minister told Mayors that the start of vaccination hinges on two factors: the release by ANVISA of the emergency use of AstraZeneca and CoronaVac vaccines and the logistics of the flight that will bring the two million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine from India.