BRASILIA (BLOOMBERG) - Omicron, the highly contagious variant of Covid-19, is causing a sharp spike in cases in Brazil after a long respite, even if official data is failing to reflect the toll of the new wave.
Private diagnostics companies like Grupo Fleury and Diagnosticos da America have seen positivity rates skyrocket to as much as 40 per cent in January, from less than 5 per cent just a month ago.
The demand for tests is surging, with emergency rooms in cities like Sao Paulo and Brasilia packed with people reporting flu-like symptoms. In Rio de Janeiro, daily infections passed 1,200 on Jan 1, from about 90 a month before.
On Thursday (Jan 6), Brazil reported 35,826 new cases, the highest daily toll in about three months. While it is a fraction of the more than 100,000 it registered at the height of the pandemic in mid-2021, the real numbers are likely far greater, according to health experts.
That is because the system used by states, municipalities and private labs to report cases to the federal government has been mostly down since a cyber attack in December.
"There's a silent Omicron pandemic in Brazil," said Dr Pedro Hallal, an epidemiologist and professor at the Federal University of Pelotas. "There aren't enough tests or official statistics to show how much the number of infected people is growing."
While hospitalisations have ticked higher in Brazil in recent weeks, so far there has not been an onslaught of patients seeking intensive care like in mid-2021 before vaccines were widely available.
Argentina to the south is seeing record daily case counts but without a corresponding jump in hospitalisations or deaths, repeating a pattern documented in other countries like South Africa and Denmark.
Following year-end celebrations, infections are expected to keep rising. An outbreak on cruise ships - some 800 cases reported between Christmas and New Year alone - already led the country's health watchdog to call on companies to halt operations, and tourist destinations in the coastal states of Bahia and Piaui are among those reporting a significant jump in infections following festivities.
In an e-mailed response to questions, the health ministry said the cyber attack made some of its data on respiratory diseases and Covid-19 unavailable and said it is working tirelessly to solve the issues.
Still, there's no timeline for the systems to be fully back up. At least four Brazilian states have not updated coronavirus data for 12 days, citing difficulties in accessing the health ministry's systems. Tocantins, in the north, has not updated for 22 days.
"The fact that we haven't had access to formal data for such a long time without any clear explanation about what's happening, is affecting any sort of analysis we can do," said Mr Marcelo Gomes, who oversees a bulletin on respiratory diseases published by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, one of Latin America's most prominent health and science institutes. "It's having a very large impact on the population's ability to act against the pandemic."
Private companies are shedding some light on the latest wave. At Diagnosticos da America, one of the country's largest diagnostics providers, positivity rates more than doubled between Dec 27 and Jan 2, with almost one of every three tests coming back positive. In early December, that number was just 1.4 per cent.
At Fleury, another leading player in Brazil's private healthcare industry, as many as 40 per cent of tests are positive - the same number the lab saw at the height of the pandemic last year.
"We're trying to comply with the notification requirements, but the system that the government implemented last year has not been working since early December," said Dr Carolina Lazari, Fleury's infectious disease expert.
Health experts say the data blackout is serious but far from the only challenge in tracking the pandemic in Latin America's largest nation.
Dr Domingos Alves, a medical academic who is part of the Covid-19 Brasil monitoring group, estimates that the country is failing to report between 6 per cent and 10 per cent of cases.
Only 30 per cent of the population has access to Covid-19 tests, according to virologist Anderson F. Brito.
The success in vaccinations may be enough to prevent a new round of restrictive measures even as cases jump, according to Dr Hallal, at the University of Pelotas. Brazil has given two Covid-19 vaccine shots to about 74 per cent of the population, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, and boosters to 13 per cent.
"The high vaccination levels reduce the need for hospitalisations in relation to the beginning of the pandemic," he said. "Still, the use of masks and cancelling big events such as Carnival and concerts are necessary measures."
