São Paulo state registers no new deaths today — a first since March 2020

Health officials in the state of São Paulo informed that no new Covid deaths were registered within its 645 municipalities on Monday — the first time that has happened since March 17, 2020.

The state is home to 46 million people — or 22 percent of the Brazilian population. For most of the pandemic, São Paulo was the country’s coronavirus epicenter. At one point, the city’s largest cemetery operated 24/7 to deal with the sheer amount of bodies needing burials.

But São Paulo also leads the country in vaccination rates, with 81 percent of citizens having received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine, and 69 percent being fully immunized.

São Paulo’s seven-day rolling average of new daily deaths has remained below the 100 mark for 28 days, and the occupancy rate in intensive care units sits at 24 percent (31 percent in Greater São Paulo, the most-populated metropolitan area in South America).

Governor João Doria celebrated the milestone. “It is a victory of science, of the vaccine, and of life,” he said. “We have had good numbers over the past few weeks, and the reason is vaccination.” 

Mr. Doria is using his pivotal role in securing immunizers for the country — his administration inked a deal for the Chinese-made CoronaVac while the federal government adopted an anti-vax stance — as the linchpin of a presidential bid. He will faces off against Rio Grande do Sul Governor Eduardo Leite in the primaries for the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) later this month. 

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