São Paulo, Now in ‘Green’ Covid-19 Phase, Reopens Cinemas, Museums, Conventions

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – São Paulo has changed phases. Amid a pandemic that has already claimed over 13,000 lives and infected at least 340,000 people in the city with Covid-19, the largest city in Brazil transitioned on Friday from the Yellow to the Green Phase – the second least restrictive – of the plan developed by the State Government to fight the novel coronavirus. The capital, together with five other regions (Campinas, Sorocaba, Piracicaba, Taubaté and Baixada Santista) that have moved to green, have 76 percent of the state population.

In practice, this means that starting this Saturday, October 10th, cultural activities such as movies, theaters, museums, events and conventions will return – even though the municipal parks will only be open during the week and there are no plans to restart projects such as Paulista Aberta, which closes the avenue for cars during weekends. The city hall considers that it is very difficult to control access of a limited amount of people to these areas, as a means to prevent crowds.

The reopened areas may operate with only 60 percent capacity and with compulsory access control and scheduled time. Other traditional entertainment places, such as shopping malls, trade and services, including gyms, are allowed to operate for 12 hours daily. Restaurants and bars may remain open until 11 PM, but should cease to serve customers by 10 PM, to the sorrow of bohemians. Activities that produce crowds such as parties, clubs, fans in stadiums and shows with standing audience are still banned.

It is a significant moment for the city, which underwent quarantine along with the rest of the state on March 21st, four days after recording the first coronavirus death in the country. A rare positive indication for the place that became the epicenter of the pandemic and the most affected city by Covid-19 in the country, while the development of a vaccine remains uncertain.

The state government is committed to a partnership between the Chinese Sinovac laboratory and the Butantan Institute for the local manufacture of Coronavac, but is facing technical and political challenges – Governor João Doria is a political opponent of President Jair Bolsonaro, who prefers to place his bets on the vaccine producing partnership between Rio de Janeiro’s Fiocruz and the British Oxford University.

The result is a kind of race between São Paulo and Brasília to develop the drug, a dispute that ultimately undermines both parties. During the press conference in which he announced the Green Phase, Doria himself admitted that there is a Plan B in case the Ministry of Health refuses to buy the Coronavac to distribute it to the SUS (National Health System). São Paulo could sell directly to other states in the country bypassing the federal Ministry.

However, none of this implies, not even by a long shot, that São Paulo is free of the novel coronavirus. The government’s plan is not a total clearance. The Green Phase – the fourth of five government classifications, called Partial Opening – is more rigorous than Blue, described as Normal Controlled. The plan establishes five phases, marked by colors. From the most to the least restrictive, the Phases are Red, Orange, Yellow, Green and Blue.

For each region to evolve from one level to the next, several criteria must be met, such as the drop in ICU bed occupancy rates, the number of these beds for every 100,00 inhabitants, and the evolution in the curves of new cases and deaths over seven successive days.

However, the rules may be different to move on to the Blue Phase. José Medina, coordinator of the state’s Coronavirus Contingency Center, said the conditions are still being studied – but that the existence of a vaccine can be established as a prerequisite.

Yet there are experts who perceive plans similar to the one adopted by São Paulo as a disastrous model. Other cities that have tried early reopening options, like Belo Horizonte and Curitiba, have had to reverse the plan in a kind of yo-yo effect – although Doria insists that the São Paulo Plan is “modestly, a model for the world”.

Independence and death

Covid-19 continues to rage in São Paulo, although the State does indeed drive the drop in the death toll recorded in the country, as evidenced by the decline in the number of daily deaths in the city. The latest bulletin released by the city government on Wednesday shows 40 death notifications – a figure that passed 130 in June. Still, at the state level, there are now over one million cases and the number of deaths exceeds 37,000 – essentially a packed Pacaembu soccer stadium. Meanwhile, in the country as a whole, deaths are expected to exceed 150,000 in the coming hours – and this only two months after reaching the ominous mark of 100,000 lives lost on August 8th. On Thursday, according to government data, there were 729 new deaths. It is as if four jet planes kept crashing in the country, day after day.

But even this unrestrained crash seems to do little to attract the attention of the São Paulo population, after almost eight months of quarantine and social restrictions. Little by little, masks start to give way to unprotected faces on the streets. Seeing crowded bars outside the established hours is no longer something unusual. Sidewalks overcrowded with pedestrians, consumers and passers-by have become part of the urban scene again, as before. This kind of reverse quarantine began to take shape primarily after the September 7th holiday, Brazil’s Independence Day, when the beaches, bars and parks became overcrowded. It is as if the population had decided to declare its own independence from quarantine. With scenes as present in recent memory as the lack of places for the dead in the Vila Formosa cemetery on the East Side, it makes sense to wonder if this is the most sensible path.

Moreover, there is the increasingly present issue of the threat of a potential second wave. While São Paulo changes its phase colors and relaxes its confinement rules, the European city of Madrid has once again decreed a state of alert for 15 days and closed its doors, faced with the risk of a resurgence of the virus. Paris has once again imposed several restrictions. Comparing the situations in these cities is difficult, because they use different criteria to implement the social isolation measures. Madrid prefers indicators related to the number of cases detected through PCR tests in certain sections of the population – a number that has shown a rise in recent days, as pointed out by the W.H.O. (World Health Organization). In São Paulo, as there is incomplete control over the testing data, the preferred indicator is the percentage of ICU beds occupied by Covid-19 patients. Today, this figure stands at around 37 percent in São Paulo and has been declining – in June, it exceeded 90 percent.

Nevertheless, the prospect of a second wave concerns São Paulo. It is interesting to note that, as he made announcement of the transition to the Green Phase, Doria himself commented that “summer in Europe has left a lesson for the world. The neglect with the wearing of masks and the crowds led to a second wave of infection. Let it be a lesson for Brazil,” he said, before issuing an explicit warning about the risks involved in the October 12th holiday next Monday: “The virus does not choose victims or ages, sex or socioeconomic status. Think about the people you have lost over these eight months before you adopt wrong behavior.”

Source: El País