Brazil recommends return to masking, isolation
The Brazil Society of Infectology (SBI) Thursday recommended the country return to mask-wearing, vaccination and isolation amid the World Health Organization’s concern about a new COVID-19 variant.
EG.5 — or “Eris”, as it has been nicknamed by news media — was designated a “variant of interest” this month by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Last week, SBI President Alberto Chebabo published an official recommendation to revive failed practices from the pandemic. While “EG.5 has not yet been identified in Brazil,” Chebabo noted, “it is possible that it may already be circulating in the country silently, due to the low rate of sampling and genomic analysis in Brazil.”
Therefore, the SBI and its two dozen subsidiaries around the country recommend that all Brazilians aged six months and older receive at least three COVID-19 vaccinations. Risk groups, including pregnant women, should receive booster shots no later than one year after their last dose.
“It is important to emphasize that vaccines remain active in protecting against severity and death for all the variants currently circulating, including EG.5,” Chebabo wrote.
Next, the SBI recommends the “use of masks for the population at risk in closed, poorly ventilated and crowded places” and more testing for the virus. Those who test positive should be isolated.
COVID-19 patients 65 and older or those who are immunosuppressed should be given Pfizer’s Paxlovid drug (Nirmatrelvir/ritonavir) within the first five days, adds the SBI. If Paxlovid cannot be administered, patients should be given remdesivir.
Remdesivir, a multi-infusion treatment developed by Gilead Sciences, had been tested in 2019 on Ebola patients against three other drugs under the auspices of then-National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci. Patients who were given remdesivir had the highest mortality rate.
Nevertheless, the drug was forcefully administered by hospitals around the world during the pandemic. Its trademark effect is kidney failure, and remdesivir was considered so lethal that it was derisively nicknamed, “Run, death is near.”
But the SBI is not the only establishment body calling for the return of COVID-19 policies. The Biden administration is planning to reinstate COVID-19 restrictions beginning with mask mandates, a high-ranking Transportation Security Administration (TSA) official reportedly told Infowars.
According to the official, TSA managers were told in a Tuesday meeting that mask mandates will be imposed on TSA officers and airport employees beginning in mid-September. Restrictions will escalate so that by mid-October, pilots, flight crews and passengers will also be required to wear masks.
Infowars reports confirming this news with a Border Patrol manager who said it is not a matter of “if” but “when" COVID-19 numbers will increase.
