⁍ In April and May, so many Manaus residents were dying from COVID-19 that its hospitals collapsed.
⁍ In June, deaths unexpectedly plummeted.
⁍ Public health experts wondered whether so many residents had caught the virus that it had run out of new people to infect.
– Manaus, Brazil, was thought to be one of the first places in the world to reach “herd immunity”—the ability of a community to fight off a disease. The Amazon city, home to 1.8 million people, was hit hard by a SARS-like virus known as coronavirus in April and May. The death toll in Manaus from COVID-19 peaked at 60 on April 30 and dropped to just two or three a day by late August, reports Reuters. But the city is now seeing a resurgence of the virus, and authorities have issued a 30-day ban on parties and other gatherings. They’re also warning residents that if they don’t follow the ban, they could risk a second wave of contagion by not wearing masks and attending parties. “The government must take this seriously and speak the truth,” says Manaus Mayor Arthur Virgilio. “If it says there is no problem, that encourages people to ignore our decrees.” A Sao Paulo University study published last week suggests that 44% to 66% of the city’s population was infected between the peak in mid-May and August, and that antibodies to the virus appear to wane after a few months, reports Reuters. “Something that became evident in our study—and that is also being shown by other groups—is that antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 decay quickly, a few months after infection,” one of the study’s authors said in a statement. “This is clearly occurring in Manaus.”
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-brazil-manaus/in-brazils-amazon-a-covid-19-resurgence-dashes-herd-immunity-hopes-idUSKBN26I0I4