Rio de Janeiro may suspend vaccination starting Tuesday

SAO PAULO

Rio de Janeiro mayor, Eduardo Paes, announced Monday that Brazil’s second largest city will suspend its COVID-19 vaccination as of Tuesday, due to the lack of available doses.

The South American country started vaccinating with a cluttered program in mid-January and has since struggled to get access to new doses and to the implements used for local manufacture.

Rio considers the possibility of using vaccines reserved for second shots, but this would depend on ensuring the city will receive new doses by the first week of March, what remains uncertain.

Other municipalities around Rio have also announced they have enough doses only to vaccinate until Tuesday.

Rio has vaccinated around 245,000 out of its 6.7 million people, according to Paes, and was already starting to immunize the elderly over 83 years old. “We just need the vaccine to arrive. A new Butantan batch should arrive by next week,” Paes wrote in his Twitter account, referring to Sao Paulo’s institute producing CoronaVac.

So far, Brazil has vaccinated around 5 million people, equivalent to only 2.4% of its 213 million population. The Brazilian COVID-19 vaccination program has been under much criticism over the slowness and by the fact that the federal government failed to anticipate and to negotiate enough doses for its huge population. Brazil has a long tradition in vaccination, with a program known and recognized throughout the world.

Northern State Amazonas, which faces a severe collapse of its health system, is ahead when considering the percentage of its population already immunized.

Roughly 196,000 have taken the first shot, representing nearly 5% of Amazonians. Less than 0.2% of Amazonas population (just over 6,400 people), though, have also taken their second dose. Tiny Distrito Federal, where capital Brasilia is located, follows with 3.6% of its 3 million inhabitants vaccinated with the first dose.

Sao Paulo state, with Brazil’s biggest population, is ahead on the number of doses, over 1,4 million, or roughly 3.2% of its 46 million population. Although Sao Paulo started vaccinating earlier, the state has not yet started administering second doses. Bahia is a far second, with 373,000 doses (2,5% of its 15 million people).

Only 17 of Brazil’s 27 federative units have started so far to fully immunize their population. Minas Gerais is the state that most administered second doses, with just over 79,000, or about 0.4% of its population. In total, roughly 215,000 second doses were given in the country so far, or 0.1% of Brazil’s population.

Mato Grosso do Sul is the most advanced state when considering the size of its population, with 0.83% of its 2.8 million inhabitants.

Brazil already has over 238,000 COVID-19 deaths, of which about 7,700 died within the last seven days, raising Sunday the moving deaths average to the country’s highest rate since the onset of the pandemic, or 1,105.

The number of infected Brazilians exceeds 9.8 million, what puts the country only behind the US’ 27.6 million and India’s 10.9 million, according to Johns Hopkins University data. In number of casualties, Brazil is second only to the US, which has 485,400 deaths.

With the Carnival holiday canceled throughout the country, with samba parades and street blocks suspended, many cities have seen clandestine parties being held, despite a larger enforcement during the period. On the first night of the holiday, seven establishments in Rio were closed.