Is Brazil Coming Out of the Pandemic?

[Lucky]

An article in today's Wall Street Journal is headlined "Brazil Comes Out of Pandemic." It states:

"High acceptance of vaccines across the region has allowed governments to quickly immunize their populations as global supplies of Covid-19 shots become widely available.

About 72% of Brazilians have now received at least one vaccine dose, more than in the U.S., where 64% have gotten at least one shot, according to Our World in Data."

So, Brazil is now safer than the US? If so, I should be planning m travel. The article goes on to state how prices keep increasing there.

Subscription required: https://www.wsj.com/articles/brazil-comes-out-of-pandemic-and-hits-the-next-hardshipinflation-11633727802?mod=hp_listb_pos2

[msclelovr]

Yet Al Jazeera reports that deaths from COVID in Brazil exceed 600,000. 
And there is a part-protest, part-memorial on Copacabana beach to the dead. 
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/9/brazil-surpasses-600000-covid-deaths

 

[scott456]

But if you visit Brazil you sure will be doing some activities there that you don't do in the U.S. 

That could increase your risk factor. 🙂

[SolaceSoul]

https://apple.news/AV_K0athxRX2xx8ljxUrrdQ

[floridarob]

Got into SP yesterday, almost everyone still wearing masks in the street and in stores. Only the workers were using them in Lagoa last night. Stores still require them to go in and business hours are back to normal.

there were more clients than GP's last night, cold chilly tainy night. The guys are too delicate to go out in this weather, might mess up their hair, lol

[Riobard]

The true COVID mortality estimated from a proportion of excess clinically comparable deaths is between 700,000 and 750,000.
 

Like any country, there is regional variation in new case incidence. São Paulo is at about one-third the national trend. Full-regimen vaccination including boosters for older groups particularly those with the relatively leaky CoronaVac should be completed by the end of the year. If I were a betting man I would tentatively predict the next wave following Carnival. I think the height of summer there will be an opportune time to visit, all things considered. 

São Paulo municipality, observed tally 1,000,000 but true infection likely 5-fold that metric. The Delta VOC has completely eclipsed Gamma. 

[davet]

On 10/10/2021 at 6:00 AM, floridarob said:

there were more clients than GP's last night, cold chilly tainy night. The guys are too delicate to go out in this weather, might mess up their hair, lol

Were you at Lagoa? What were the garotos who were there like? (Keeping in mind I favor the type who never mess up their hair.) I'm hoping you'll have a chance to explore Clube 555 and report back. My dreams of a November trip are getting more faint due to work if not travel regulation anxieties.

[floridarob]

3 hours ago, davet said:

I'm hoping you'll have a chance to explore Clube 555 and report back.

I have no interest in the place, was there opening night for Fragata and one other time.....meh

If the guys aren't my type, they're invisible to me, same with females, I have straight friends that will ask me how such and such a place was, if there were many girls, I tell them there might have been none or 100, I don't take notice, lol

[Lonnie]

On 10/10/2021 at 10:08 AM, Riobard said:

but true infection likely 5-fold that metric

Jeepers Creepers...where does that number come from?...if true I'll never get to return...maybe 2030 in a wheelchair.

[Riobard]

1 hour ago, Lonnie said:

Jeepers Creepers...where does that number come from?...if true I'll never get to return...maybe 2030 in a wheelchair.

I think you misunderstand. Correcting for ascertainment bias (undercount), as per commonly acknowledged differential epidemiologically estimated, it simply means that on any given day the true incidence is about 5-fold reported incidence. This is based on population samples, prior to vaccination on the scene at a time one needed not distinguish between nucleocapsid and spike-specific antibodies, comparing rates of natural immunity (from blood samples) to cumulative numbers of cases confirmed by testing; remember many are asymptomatic.

Therefore, in São Paulo it is estimated that the true recovery total among survivors is many multiples of 1 million. That is not bad news for visitors because that coupled with vaccination likely confers more robust immunity for locals, artificial superimposed on natural.

The take home message is that daily counts are always incorrect but at low incidence levels the true rate, though proportionally greater, is not much higher in absolute terms.  Currently it is 2.5->12.5/100K per diem. But at a peak level in Brazil it is more like 30->150/100K. 

You are probably a greater risk to locals than vice versa. WHO formally endorsed a 3rd shot for Brazilians over age 59 that had received CoronaVac. I don’t have time to look it up more right now. It will be considered a 3-dose regimen, not a booster, assuming the additional dose is CoronaVac. Personally, I would want a mRNA booster; I don’t know how much choice they will have, or whether it will be labelled a cross-platform integral regimen or a cross-platform booster should the 3rd dose not be CoronaVac, likely the latter.

[Riobard]

1 hour ago, floridarob said:

Edit not working and I cannot delete it;

I (Riobard): what I want to say is that unlike strip clubs up here the guys don’t approach you hoping to make some cash … you try to be social but a guy you like slips by unnoticed while you are trying to be polite to the guy seeking your patronage. In Brazil you tend to give a signal; otherwise you are left alone. 

[bucknaway]

By the CDC map, I'm leaving the covid hotspot USA for Brazil.

 

 

[Riobard]

By any standard, including the least incidence currently Connecticut, exposure risk far lower in Brazil. 

[davet]

On 10/11/2021 at 11:22 AM, Riobard said:

The take home message is that daily counts are always incorrect but at low incidence levels the true rate, though proportionally greater, is not much higher in absolute terms.

Do you mean that over longer time frames, the daily count inaccuracy evens out?

[davet]

On 10/11/2021 at 10:11 AM, floridarob said:

I have no interest in the place, was there opening night for Fragata and one other time.....meh

Do you mean at their re-opening? Indeed, it sounds like they've had a rough time since the relocation a year or two ago, so I was wondering if things have changed.

Yup, interest-blindness gets us all. However, what I liked about the old Fragata at least was that there were usually 2-3 muscle beauties of top Lagoa quality (Lagoa might have 10-20 of those, but how many do you really need?!) plus usually 2-3 freaks of cock-nature. But everyone in between I wouldn't be able to identify in a police line-up.

[Riobard]

1 hour ago, davet said:

Do you mean that over longer time frames, the daily count inaccuracy evens out?

No, the running cumulative total is about 5-fold official reports. That is a constant. I would not equate that with it evens out. I am saying that a daily count of 1 with ascertainment bias correction to 5 is a difference of 4; 5 is 25 with a difference of 20. The differential ratio, 5:1, is constant but one might psychologically minimize the risk difference between a report of 1 versus 5, and the probability of minimally one contagious person in a group escalates according to correcting the undercount.

The concept of evened out or smoothed out is not very useful. It might help retrospectively calculate odds of infection over a previous period of time. In the present, risk is based on the current trend.  Otherwise, an evened out metric is arbitrary and only useful in terms of its value relative to another entity or pandemic location and whatever is potentially conferred by knowing past info. 

Similarly, national rates are not meaningful if you are in one region, as I illustrated. Again, the differences between true incidence and observed reported incidence amplify exponentially according to the breadth of reported incidence. That helps explain the apparently large exposure risk differences delineated on the US map. 

At a certain point according to both comparative incidence and vaccination uptake, a particular location with lower uptake could easily be safer than another location with higher uptake because case incidence is lower in the former than the latter. In estimating such a juncture it is imperative to consider the likely true rate of infection. Vaccine uptake is more accurately measurable while cases and exposure contagion require adjustment due to undercount. Undercount is also considerably variable, needing roughly between 3-fold and 8-fold correction depending on what regional population sampling yields. 

Current general population incidence rates are now considerably distorted as well because they minimize the true rates among those susceptible to infection. An accurate rendering of those metrics would eliminate a lot of ambivalence about the merits of segregation. In many cases the unvaccinated case rates are as high as anywhere ever while among the vaccinated as low as anywhere ever. That would be fine except for the reality that vaccines are leaky. 

[floridarob]

1 hour ago, davet said:

old Fragata at least was that there were usually 2-3 muscle beauties of top Lagoa quality (Lagoa might have 10-20 of those, but how many do you really need?!) plus usually 2-3 freaks of cock-nature.

They seem to have settled at new Lagoa. My friend just commented about only seeing like 1 muscle boy at lagoa and wonder where they all go now, unless they just do sites??

[Riobard]

52 minutes ago, floridarob said:

They seem to have settled at new Lagoa. My friend just commented about only seeing like 1 muscle boy at lagoa and wonder where they all go now, unless they just do sites??

In 18 months I have only seen one or two Lagoa physique guys that I am familiar with from a few weeks prior to March 2020 pandemic onset, on the range of ad sites. Most of the other physique/BB types seem to have always been prominent on the sites and may have occasionally worked Lagoa as well unbeknownst to me. Therefore, my sense is there has not been a mass unidirectional exodus to the sites. Maybe they are not the bimbos they get labelled as, and are scientifically clinically astute as they hold out for their 2nd doses of prime-boost vaxx in 4th quarter. Additionally, my take was always that the ad route is trickier for physique model types and their reputations. I say this without authority as others have been more in tune by virtue of being there recently. 

——/-
We need to conduct an experiment and have a few dozen board members message the same few hundred local physique models with an arbitrary window of time for winter visits, clearly stating Lagoa as a haunting ground. Then I can volunteer to assess the Lagoa trends in situ there over that period. My accumulated trade budget is insane. 

[Riobard]

@floridarob and others, is the little weight room at Lagoa operational? 

[Lonnie]

1 hour ago, Riobard said:

Then I can volunteer to assess the Lagoa trends in situ there over that period

[floridarob]

20 hours ago, Riobard said:

@floridarob and others, is the little weight room at Lagoa operational? 

yes