SERRANA, Brazil — Just one COVID-19 patient is 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 say the woman was awaiting one of Pfizer’s shots, which remain scarce in Brazil. But she is an outlier here.
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.
Doctors who treated COVID-19 in Serrana have seen their patient loads evaporate. They now help colleagues with other diseases and recently 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,” Rogério 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 virus, enduring rising infections and new government-imposed restrictions. Meanwhile, the vaccine appeared headed for wider use. The World Health Organization on Tuesday granted emergency use authorization to the Sinovac shot for people 18 and over, the second such authorization it has granted to a Chinese company.
The experiment known as “Project S” lasted four months and tested Sinovac’s shot in real-world conditions. The preliminary results made public Monday suggest the pandemic can be controlled if three-quarters of the population is fully vaccinated with Sinovac, said Ricardo Palacios, a director at Sao Paulo state’s Butantan Institute and coordinator of the study, which was not peer-reviewed.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 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%, hospitalizations by 86% and symptomatic cases by 80%.
The project “shows the protection exists and that the vaccine is effective. No doubt,” Gonzalo Vecina, one of the founders of Brazil’s health regulator and a medical school professor, told The Associated Press.
能不能找到一个或几个非发达国家的数据,并且是用辉瑞或莫当纳疫苗的,那你的说服力就完备了。
赞一个,以数据说话而不是先有观点再找数据的贴,那就是好帖。
华盛顿邮报刚报道了一个非发达国家的数据,用的中国疫苗,打脸神父说的中国疫苗打了100%也没有用