MIAMI – Although Teresa Frade was infected with Covid-19 during the summer and received both doses of the vaccine, she is still afraid to visit her family in Brazil.
The last time she was there was in late February last year, and she returned just before Florida was closed.
Frade, 54, a health worker in South Florida, is not sure if she could be infected again with the Brazilian variant that has devastated parts of the South American country and is worried about whether it could spread here.
Florida leads the country with the most cases caused by the more transmissible and potentially deadly Covid-19 variant from the UK, but there are new concerns about the possible spread of the Brazilian variant, also more contagious.
Florida has the largest Brazilian population in the United States, with an estimated 80,000 born in Brazil, and many of them travel to their home country to visit family. President Joe Biden has reintroduced travel restrictions to several countries, including Brazil; the restrictions affect non-US citizens.
“This is not a good time to travel,” said Frade, who has family in Rio de Janeiro. Apart from travel restrictions, the fear of the Brazilian tension makes ‘that we do not want to go’.
In the United States, the first known case of the Brazilian variant called P.1 was identified in a Minnesota resident who recently traveled to Brazil, the state Department of Health announced Monday.
Scientists are concerned about this variant due to the increase in infections that have plagued the city of Manaus in Brazil. The journal Science published a study indicating that 76 percent of Manaus’ population had antibodies in October. But the area has had a second increase in cases since mid-December. The fear is that the series of mutations in P.1 not only makes it more transmissible, but that it can also affect the ability to recognize antibodies, which can lead to reinfection.
Overall, the South American country had one of the fastest growing Covid-19 epidemics in the world with the Amazon, where Manaus is located, being hit the hardest. Manaus has a population of 2 million people.
The second boom was so devastating for Manaus, their health care system that nearly collapsed, that the city asked crisis-stricken Venezuela for help when oxygen ran out of hospitals. Venezuela sent five trucks of oxygen last week.
The first known cases of the Brazilian variant were identified in four travelers from Brazil who were taken during a routine investigation at an airport outside Tokyo. Experts predicted that it would only be a matter of time before the Brazilian and British variants appeared in the US
‘The import of P.1 to the USA is not surprising. The volume of aviation passengers from Brazil to the USA is large and the variant is becoming more and more common in at least some parts of Brazil, ”said dr. William Hanage, associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, said.
‘Search actively for variant’
In Florida, the number of cases caused by the British variant doubled last week and now stands at 92, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Florida Department of Health recently increased the amount of Covid-19 samples it examines for mutations and averages about 200 samples per week.
A spokesman for the Florida Department of Health said in an email that the state is a ‘national leader in the sequence of mutations’ of the Covid-19 virus. As of January 19, the department has compiled 3,470 copies of Covid-19.
According to the spokesperson, the department is actively looking for the variant in Florida, and therefore more cases are being discovered in Florida. “
Overall, the US lagged behind with the order compared to other countries. It is a long process that takes days to complete, with samples of Covid-19 diagnostic tests normally being discarded. According to the nonprofit GISAID initiative that has a database, only about 0.3 percent of all cases in the United States are followed up.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis lifted all restrictions on businesses across the country in September and schools had to open the mandate. The state reported 8,408 cases on Wednesday. Nearly 1.5 million people received the first dose of Covid-19 vaccinations in Florida.
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