Commentary by Miguel Nicolelis, Professor of Neurobiology at Duke University in the United States
Brazil is the country of carnivals, tropical forests and… one of the most dangerous strains of COVID-19 found. Its population is nearly 210 million people. The country currently ranks second in coronavirus mortality, after the United States.
“COVID-19 is a new threat to the whole world. There is no doubt about that. This virus also set very sad records. “There are days when the number of deaths is 2,000. In my opinion, it is quite possible that it will reach 3,000. I have not left my home for a year, so I manage to defend myself,” said Miguel Nicolelis.
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He is a professor of neurobiology at Duke University in the United States. For the past year, he has been coordinating the largest science program in Brazil, which aims to defeat the pandemic.
“I can say that the situation in Brazil is currently the worst in a year. We are entering the most dangerous moment of the whole pandemic in the country. All this is due to the collapse of the national health system and the widespread spread of the virus, which can now be found everywhere here. “The sad thing is that there are a lot of deaths,” Nicolelis said.
The British strain of coronavirus has been found in 60 countries
According to him, we still do not know much about how deadly the new strain is. “It simply came to our notice then. “The problems that this variant of the virus causes can be attributed to strains from the United Kingdom and South Africa,” he said.
He added: “When there is a situation like the one in Brazil – with 70-80 thousand new infections a day, the virus is allowed to mutate, it is provided with a suitable environment. The more mutations the virus can have, the greater the chance of new variants forming. Elementary virology.
Watch the whole conversation in the video.
Reporter: Nikolai Beremliiski
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