Just one COVID-19 patient was in critical condition at the Dr Geraldo Cesar Reis clinic in Serrana, a city of almost 46,000 in Sao Paulo state’s countryside. The 63-year-old woman rejected the vaccine that was offered to every adult resident of Serrana as part of a trial.
Doctors have said the woman was awaiting one of Pfizer’s shots, which remain scarce in Brazil.
However, she is an outlier there. Most adults rolled up their sleeves when offered the vaccine made by the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac, and the experiment has transformed the community into an oasis of near normalcy in a country where many communities continue to suffer.
Photo: Bloomberg
Doctors who treated COVID-19 in Serrana have seen their patient loads evaporate. They now help colleagues with other diseases and have started eating lunch at home.
Life has returned to the streets: Neighbors chat and families have weekend barbecues. Outsiders who previously had no reason to set foot in Serrana are arriving for haircuts and restaurant outings.
“We’re now as full as we used to be,” Rogerio Silva, a staffer at a store for cheap refreshments and snacks, said in an interview. “Weeks ago, people wouldn’t form a line in here, wouldn’t eat in and I wouldn’t let them use the bathroom. Now it’s back.”
The success story emerged as other population centers keep struggling with the coronavirus, enduring rising infections and new government-imposed restrictions.
Meanwhile, the vaccine appeared headed for wider use.
The WHO on Tuesday granted emergency use authorization to the Sinovac shot for people 18 or over, the second such authorization it has granted to a Chinese company.
The experiment known as “Project S” lasted four months and tested the Sinovac shot in real-world conditions.
The preliminary results made public on Monday suggest that the pandemic can be controlled if three-quarters of the population is fully vaccinated with Sinovac, said Ricardo Palacios, a director at the state’s Butantan Institute and coordinator of the study, which was not peer-reviewed.
“The most important result was understanding that we can control the pandemic even without vaccinating the entire population,” Palacios said.
The results offer hope to hundreds of millions of people, especially in developing nations. Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, Zimbabwe and others are likewise reliant on the Chinese shot, which is cheaper than vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.
The city’s population was split into four geographic areas regardless of age and gender, and most adults received two shots by the end of April.
Results released on Monday showed that the pandemic was controlled after three of the areas had been vaccinated. It was not clear if vaccine uptake was the same in each area.
Serrana saw vast improvements: Deaths fell by 95 percent, hospitalizations by 86 percent and symptomatic cases by 80 percent.
The project “shows the protection exists and that the vaccine is effective. No doubt,” said Gonzalo Vecina, one of the founders of Brazil’s health regulator and a medical school professor.
The spread of the virus in Serrana slowed while neighboring communities, such as Ribeirao Preto, just 19km west, saw COVID-19 cases surge. The upswing was largely blamed on more contagious variants.
Hospitals in Ribeirao Preto are so full of COVID-19 patients that the mayor last week imposed strict shutdown measures, including halting public transportation and limiting hours for the city’s 700,000 residents to buy groceries.
Some would wait months for their vaccines. Almost all shops are closed, and 95 percent of intensive care unit beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients.
Just months ago, it was Serrana struggling to cope, said Joao Antonio Madalosso Jr, a physician.
For every patient who recovered in the first three months of this year, two more arrived in bad shape, he said.
“Then, by the end of January, we heard this project was coming to Serrana, and calmness set in, little by little,” said Madalosso, 32, as he pointed at the empty seats of the hospital’s COVID-19 ward. “Just look at this. This is much calmer than Ribeirao Preto and the entire region. The vaccine is no cure, but it is the solution to transform this into a light flu so people can carry on.”
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
Tens of thousands of Filipino Catholics yesterday twirled white cloths and chanted “Viva, viva,” as a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ was paraded through the streets of Manila in the nation’s biggest annual religious event. The day-long procession began before dawn, with barefoot volunteers pulling the heavy carriage through narrow streets where the devout waited in hopes of touching the icon, believed to hold miraculous powers. Thousands of police were deployed to manage crowds that officials believe could number in the millions by the time the statue reaches its home in central Manila’s Quiapo church around midnight. More than 800 people had sought
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
RSS