A Brazilian city thought it had herd immunity. It was wrong
A second wave of covid-19 has overwhelmed the biggest city in the Amazon
IN SEPTEMBER A preprint appeared online with the startling results from a study of covid-19 antibodies in blood-bank samples from Manaus, a city of 2m people in the Brazilian Amazon: 66% of residents may have been infected, it said. The paper, which would later appear in Science, estimating an infection rate of 76%, seemed to confirm local rumours that Manaus had reached “herd immunity”. In April it was the first Brazilian city to dig mass graves. By June burials were back to pre-pandemic levels.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “A second wave of misery in Manaus”
From the January 23rd 2021 edition
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