Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine restores Brazilian cities to near normal conditions

Serrana, Brazil – Only one thing COVID-19 (New Coronavirus Infection) The patient is in critical condition at the Dr. Geraldo Cesar Reis Clinic in Serrana, a city of approximately 46,000 people in the countryside of São Paulo. A 63-year-old woman rejected the vaccine provided to all adults in Serrana as part of the trial.

According to doctors, women were waiting for Pfizer to fire, but there are still few in Brazil. But she’s a weirdo here. Most adults rolled up their sleeves when presented with a vaccine manufactured by Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac. Experiments turned the community into an almost normal oasis in a country where many communities are suffering.

Doctors who treated COVID-19 in Serrana witnessed the patient’s load evaporate. They are currently helping other sick colleagues and have recently begun to eat lunch at home. Life is back on the street: chatting with neighbors and having a family barbecue on weekends. Outsiders who previously had no reason to set foot in Serrana are arriving to cut their hair or go to a restaurant.

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“We are now as full as we used to be,” Rogerio Silva, a staff member at a store that sells cheap meals and snacks, said in an interview. “A few weeks ago, people were here. I didn’t line up, eat, or go to the bathroom. Now I’m back. “

Success stories were born as other densely populated areas continued to fight the virus, enduring increasing infectious diseases and new restrictions imposed by the government. Meanwhile, the vaccine appeared to be heading for wider use. The World Health Organization granted an emergency use permit to Sinovac shots for people over the age of 18 on Tuesday, the second such permit given to a Chinese company.

The experiment, known as “Project S,” lasted four months and tested Sinovac shots in real-world conditions. Preliminary results released Monday suggest that a pandemic can be controlled if three-quarters of the population is fully vaccinated with Sinovac, said the director of the Butantan Institute in São Paulo. Said Ricardo Palacios, coordinator of the non-peer-reviewed study.

“The most important result was to understand that we could control the pandemic without vaccination of the entire population,” Palacios said.

The results give hope, especially to hundreds of millions of people in developing countries. Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, Zimbabwe and others likewise rely on Chinese injections, which are cheaper than Pfizer and Modana vaccines.

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The city’s population was divided into four regions, regardless of age or gender, and most adults received two doses by the end of April. Results released on Monday showed that the pandemic was controlled after three areas were vaccinated. It was not clear if vaccine intake was the same in each region.

Significant improvements have been seen in Serrana. Deaths were reduced by 95%, hospitalizations were reduced by 86%, and symptomatic patients were reduced by 80%.

The project “shows that protection exists and the vaccine is effective, no doubt,” said Gonzalo Bethena, one of the founders of the Brazilian Health Regulatory Authority and a professor of medicine. I told the Associated Press.

Similarly, Dennis Garrett, vice president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, who advocates increased access to vaccines worldwide, described the results as “good and very encouraging.”

Both Bethena and Garrett have unanswered questions and need more data, including information about people shot but not immunized, to properly analyze the results. Said there is.

The spread of the virus in Serana slowed, but COVID-19 surged in nearby communities, such as Ribeirao Preto, just 12 miles west. The main cause of this rise was due to the more contagious variants.

Ribeirao Preto’s hospital is flooded with COVID-19 patients, so the mayor closed severely last week, including a shutdown of public transport and limiting the time for 700,000 residents in the city to buy groceries. I have imposed action. Some people wait months for the vaccine to arrive. Almost all stores have been closed and 95% of the beds in the intensive care unit are occupied by virus patients.

May 28, 2021: Outside a fully operational hospital in Ribeirao Preto, Sao Paulo, Brazil, people with COVID-19 symptoms are waiting for help.
(AP photo / other pens)

Hermano Silveira, 54, works at a local drugstore and wants to live for the first time in Serana, who had been looked down upon before the vaccination.

“My friends there were always calling me …. now I’m the one who calls them,” said Silveira. “Before the pandemic, it’s like a big city here. There was a nice atmosphere. I was really busy, but now it’s like a desert. “

Just a few months ago, Serana was having a hard time coping, according to Dr. Joan Antonio Madarosso Jr., for every patient who recovered in the first three months of 2021, two more. Arrived due to poor physical condition.

“I heard that the project was coming to Serrana by the end of January, and it was slowly calming down,” said Madarosso, 32, pointing to an empty seat in the hospital’s COVID-19 ward. Told. “Look at this. It’s much more subdued than Ribeirao Preto or the entire region. Vaccines aren’t a cure, but they’re a solution to turn this into a mild flu so people can continue. “

That does not mean that Serrana has completely removed the virus. Some residents refused to shoot. Some people skip the second dose or get infected before the vaccine is fully effective. Some had previous illnesses that prevented vaccination.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has repeatedly questioned the effectiveness of this shot. He said last year that his administration did not buy the Chinese vaccine and did not intend to make Brazilians “guinea pigs”. His Ministry of Health said after the Brazilian health authorities approved the vaccine in January. Only signed a contract to buy tens of millions of vaccines ..

Brazil might have doubled the Sinovac vaccine so far if the government acted faster. This shot accounts for half of the vaccines available in the country so far.

The vaccine arrived too late for some of the 463,000 people who died of COVID-19 in Brazil, the second most deadly person in the world.

“Without delays in vaccination, it could have happened across Brazil,” said João Doria, Governor of São Paulo and an adversary to Bolsonaro. “These results control the pandemic. It shows that there is only one way: vaccines, vaccines, vaccines. “

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Sinovac’s skeptical view of Bolsonaro’s shots reached Serrana. Disclosure of São Paulo validity data was confusing, with Doria initially claiming 78% protection for mild cases on January 7, and amending it to 50.4% five days later, with health officials Slightly above the required level.

81-year-old Carmen da Silva Kunya lost her friend with the virus and she was vaccinated despite “many people bothered me about the vaccine”.

“Serana is better, but if many people hit the second shot, it could be better,” she said in a hospital interview. She seeks treatment for a sore throat. She tested negative for COVID-19 and doctors expected her to return home soon.

Mayor Leo Capitanelli is pleased with the results. Standing next to a health check station on the road to the city, he said people have had only mild to moderate COVID-19 cases in recent weeks. And he boasted of Sinovac’s plans to hold a music festival for about 5,000 spectators, all vaccinated with the Sinovac vaccine.

“This project has regained our pride,” he said. “And that will bring hope for a new start next year.”