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São Paulo Governor Tarcísio de Freitas enacted a law this week banning Covid vaccine passport requirements to enter private and public spaces. The law came into force on Wednesday.

The bill was originally drafted in late 2021 by a group of far-right, pro-Bolsonaro state lawmakers, including Janaina Paschoal, who lost a bid for the Senate. It was only taken to a vote last December, during a throwaway post-election session.

Mr. Freitas vetoed most of the bill’s original provisions. The proposal’s authors included language that expressly banned requirements for Covid vaccine passports for hospital treatments, public employees, and in schools. 

The original bill stated that it would be up to families to define whether or not their children would get Covid vaccines. However, childhood vaccines in Brazil are constitutionally mandatory, and the Supreme Court has ruled on this matter in the past. Governor Freitas also vetoed the bill’s provisions regarding children.

According to official data, 43 million people have taken a first shot of Covid vaccine in São Paulo, the equivalent to 92 percent of the state’s population. However, the figures could also include those who reside in other states and countries and received vaccination in São Paulo. Roughly 40 million people took second vaccine shots. 

Per official data, only 5.7 percent of the eligible population missed their second shot, one-quarter missed their first booster, and 30 percent missed the second booster.

Therefore, the overwhelming majority of the population is fully vaccinated, rendering both vaccine passports and their banning less of a consequential issue, and more of an opportunity for ideological point-scoring.

On Twitter, Mr. Freitas said: “I took the vaccine, I defend its importance, and I also defend freedom.”

São Paulo Governor Tarcísio de Freitas tested positive for the coronavirus on Sunday. According to his press office, Mr. Freitas “is feeling well” and has only shown “mild Covid symptoms.” The statement adds that the governor will work remotely until he tests negative.

Mr. Freitas said on Twitter that he is being monitored by infectious disease expert Esper Kallás, head of the Butantan biological research center, a state-level flagship institution.

Some analysts interpreted that mention as yet another way for Mr. Freitas to distance himself from Jair Bolsonaro. After winning the governorship on the coattails of the far-right former president, Mr. Freitas denied being a hardcore supporter of his political mentor, and pledged to build a positive relationship with center-left President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — Mr. Bolsonaro’s nemesis.

During the beginning of the Covid crisis, Mr. Bolsonaro tried to sideline the Butantan institute from the country’s coronavirus vaccination program — constantly berating the Chinese Sinovac vaccine, which Butantan produced in Brazil.

At the beginning of the year, Dr. Kallás said the vaccine remains a great option for expanding Brazil’s vaccination coverage. While 85 percent of Brazilians have taken at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, only half have been protected with booster shots. The government plans to use the Sinovac vaccine only on children aged 3 to 11.

Brazil’s Health Ministry has announced its Covid vaccination schedule for 2023, which includes the use of Pfizer’s bivalent boosters as early as February 27.

The bivalent immunizer provides protection against the original coronavirus strain as well as Omicron subvariants, being designed as a single-dose booster.

Provided they have already received at least two doses of Covid vaccines, citizens over the age of 70, immunosuppressed individuals, and members of indigenous, riverine, or quilombo communities will be the first to receive the bivalent shots, starting at the end of next month. 

The next groups to receive boosters will be, in order, people between the ages of 60 and 69, pregnant and postpartum women, and healthcare workers.

The goal is to vaccinate 90 percent of these groups before offering the jabs to the broader public.

Anvisa, the Brazilian federal health regulator, on Monday authorized a single booster dose of Pfizer’s monovalent Covid vaccine for children and teenagers aged 5 or more.

For over a year, booster shots have been offered to adults. Separately, the Health Ministry in May recommended the booster shot for teenagers only. Municipalities nationwide have since been giving teens the booster.

Teenagers aged 12 and over are immunized with the same Pfizer formulation given to adults — the one with a purple cap. Children aged five to 11 are given a smaller dosage in a vial with an orange cap.

With Anvisa’s decision, teens aged 12 and up can get one of the recently approved bivalent formulations as a booster shot, or receive a third shot of the original formulation. Unlike in the U.S., use of the original monovalent vaccines as boosters was not revoked.

According to official data, only about 50 percent of Brazilian children aged five to 11 have received two jabs and thus would be eligible for a booster. Six months ago, the rate was 42 percent. Among teens, the vaccination rate is higher, with around 70 percent having received two jabs of the Covid vaccine.

In July, The Brazilian Report reported that the Health Ministry had still not shipped enough vaccines to immunize all children aged five to 11. Since then, Covid vaccination for children has remained at a very slow pace.

Federal prosecutors recommended the purchase, within 20 days, of Covid vaccines for children aged six months or more. In a document sent to the Health Ministry, they warn officials that “the delay or insufficiency in the supply of doses exposes children to the risk of death or serious sequelae.”

The recommendation comes as several cities record shortages of pediatric doses, and Brazil experiences a rise in new cases and deaths as new Omicron sub-variants spread across the country.

According to the federally-run Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, more than 400 children were hospitalized due to complications from the disease, and at least 17 died between September 4 and October 1 alone.

Pediatric vaccines by Sinovac and Pfizer received approval from health regulators in July and September, respectively. But, after four months, less than 6 percent of children aged between 3 and 4 years received both doses. With low stocks, some cities, such as Rio de Janeiro, suspended the vaccination of children.

The government made it difficult to access medicines, only recommending shots to children with pre-existing conditions. Organizations of Brazilian pediatricians have recommended any limitations be lifted.

The government’s last announcement on the issue came on November 10, announcing the distribution of 1 million jabs. Though prosecutors say the number is insufficient to immunize even the target demographic of children with pre-existing conditions.

The average life expectancy at birth in Brazil was 77 years in 2021, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). 

This comes as some relief to the country, as the devastation of the Covid pandemic in 2020 was so profound that it caused the first drop since World War II.

The health crisis reduced average Brazilian life expectancy by 1.94 years in 2020, with the drop even more pronounced in some states. In Brasília, Amazonas, Amapá, Roraima, and Espírito Santo, people were expected to live three years shorter than 2019 averages. Life expectancy in Amazonas was set to hit 73 in 2020, but it ended up as just 69.5 years.

While it is normal for longevity to fall amid a health crisis of the proportions of Covid, there were fears among experts that Brazil would take some time to recover from the pandemic in statistical terms.

However, the decreasing lethality of new variants and subvariants has allowed the health system to stand firm.

The most recent InfoGripe report by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, a federally-run biological institute, shows that severe cases of Covid are rising in 15 out of Brazil’s 27 states.

The figures are in line with recent nationwide findings, showing an overall increase in Covid cases. Federal health regulator Anvisa responded to the uptick on Tuesday by reinstating requirements for mask use in airports and on aircraft and granting emergency use authorization to two bivalent vaccines manufactured by Pfizer.

InfoGripe’s figures cover the last six weeks and indicate increases in severe cases in Alagoas, Bahia, Ceará, the Federal District, Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais, Pará, Paraíba, Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte, Rio de Janeiro, Roraima, Santa Catarina, and São Paulo.

Upticks were also observed in 17 state capitals, including Brazil’s most populous cities, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

A survey from the Brazilian diagnostic medicine association Abramed showed that, between November 5 and 11, the percentage of positive Covid tests in the private healthcare network was 39.9 percent — up from 23.1 percent one week earlier. 

Furthermore, almost three times as many tests were carried out between these two weeks.

Anvisa, the Brazilian federal health regulator, on Tuesday granted emergency authorization to two formulations of Pfizer’s Covid bivalent vaccines.

The BA.1 and BA.4/B4.5 formulations were designed to better match the circulating Omicron variants of the novel coronavirus. Pfizer had requested authorization for each bivalent vaccine back in August and September, respectively.

The vaccines are called “bivalent” because they contain two messenger RNA (mRNA) components of the SARS-CoV-2 virus: the original formulation and one targeting at least one variant.

The new formulations were approved as a booster in people aged 12 and over. Unlike in the U.S., the use of the original monovalent vaccines as boosters was not revoked.

The Health Ministry told The Brazilian Report it would request batches of the new formulations from Pfizer, given that the current contract includes the shipment of the updated boosters. The ministry did not provide a deadline nor specified quantities of the new jabs.

In a statement to the press, Pfizer said it estimates the BA.1 and BA.4/BA.5 boosters will be shipped to Brazil “in the next few weeks.” The bivalent doses are supplied in vials with a gray cap, as opposed to the purple cap used in the original formulation from late 2020.

According to official data, Brazil has applied over 491 million Covid vaccine doses, including over 200 million Pfizer jabs.

Separately, on Tuesday also, Anvisa reinstated a mask mandate for passengers on flights and in airports.