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Arquivo para November 9th, 2020

Pandemic and its second waves

09 Nov

In history there have been eight pandemics of this type since 1700, we will notice that at least seven had a second wave in some part of the world, according to the records of infectologists, but we have the Russian Flu (from 1889 to 1890), with the Spanish Flu. (from 1918 to 1919), Asian Flu (from 1957 to 1958), Hong Kong (1968 and 1969) and more recently Swine Flu (from 2009).

The second wave of covid-19 in Europe is spreading faster than the first, said infectologist Arnaud Fontanet, scientific adviser to the French government to fight the pandemic, while the virus mutation has spread from Spain. it is already 80% of new cases registered.

The second wave can occur for several reasons, including human behavior, which means how we deal with the virus and its seasonality, also the number of susceptible people, duration of immunity and mutations (like the second wave in Europe) are other possible explanations for this wave.

The behavior is easy to explain, hardly in more liberal countries people will be less inclined to accept the deprivations of isolation, since seasonality can be understood as peaks in different seasons of the year, in Europe the peaks are autumn and winter that happens now, while in Brazil it varies according to the region: the North and Northeast have more rainy periods, in the Southeast and South that will start in March 2021.

The promise of a “faster” vaccine is fearful, experts who respect the testing period understand that a vaccine will be very difficult before July of next year, and we must respect and be cautious with the testing period, mistakes in a vaccine may be more serious than the pandemic itself.

If the second wave occurs, the intensity and severity will depend on our ability to apply intervention measures and coordinate measures in a world that polarized even basic issues such as health, food and social security, it will depend on whether the second wave is more serious than the previous one.

The main function of clarifying the second wave, the regulatory process for testing vaccines and preventive measures is to keep the population calm and trust that there is a fight against the damage caused by the pandemic, it is difficult but without this we will have social chaos ever bigger.