Publications by authors named "Alexandre Celestino Leite Almeida"
Article Synopsis
- - The study in Manaus revealed that actual COVID-19 cases in early 2022 were as much as 8 times higher than what was officially reported.
- - Vaccination efforts helped lower mortality rates but didn't reach the necessary immunity levels to prevent severe cases, particularly with the emergence of new Omicron variants.
- - To effectively reduce severe COVID-19 cases, vaccination rates need to exceed 90-95% across all age groups, along with regular booster shots every four months.
Article Synopsis
- Some people used wrong ideas about COVID-19 in Brazil to make bad decisions during the pandemic.
- This led to schools reopening too soon and people getting together again, which caused more COVID-19 cases.
- In Manaus, the city in the Amazon, there was a big second wave of COVID-19 in 2021 because the pandemic didn’t actually end in 2020.
The city of Manaus (the capital of Brazil's state of Amazonas) has become a key location for understanding the dynamics of the global pandemic of COVID-19. Different groups of scientists have foreseen different scenarios, such as the second wave or that Manaus could escape such a wave by having reached herd immunity. Here we test five hypotheses that explain the second wave of COVID-19 in Manaus: 1) The greater transmissibility of the Amazonian (gamma or P.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIs Brazil's COVID-19 epicenter really approaching herd immunity? A recent study estimated that in October 2020 three-quarters of the population of Manaus (the capital of the largest state in the Brazilian Amazon) had contact with SARS-CoV-2. We show that 46% of the Manaus population having had contact with SARS-CoV-2 at that time is a more plausible estimate, and that Amazonia is still far from herd immunity. The second wave of COVID-19 is now evident in Manaus.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this manuscript, we point out that the federal government headed by President Bolsonaro has pursued a political agenda that contributed to the spread of COVID-19, transforming the country into a major repository for SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, thus representing a risk for worldwide containment efforts. Furthermore his actions are also weakening democratic institutions, which could counter his political agenda, effectively facilitating the spread of COVID-19. Thus, the perpetuation of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil is due to human behaviour factors, especially high-level public decision makers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe First Case of Immunity Loss and SARS-CoV-2 Reinfection by the Same Virus Lineage in Amazonia.
J Racial Ethn Health Disparities
August 2021
Article Synopsis
- This study documents the first confirmed case of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection in the Amazon region of Brazil, showing that the same virus lineage was involved in both infections.
- The patient was asymptomatic during the initial infection but experienced more severe symptoms upon reinfection.
- The researchers suggest there may be a recessive genetic trait within the Amazonian population that limits the development of immune memory against SARS-CoV-2.
Considering numerical simulations, this study shows that the so-called vertical social distancing health policy is ineffective to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. We present the SEIR-Net model, for a network of social group interactions, as a development of the classic mathematical model of SEIR epidemics (Susceptible-Exposed-Infected (symptomatic and asymptomatic)-Removed). In the SEIR-Net model, we can simulate social contacts between groups divided by age groups and analyze different strategies of social distancing.
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