– Greeting from SC B4 Brazil Regular Member – Antonio Ricardo MATOS TENORIO –
Dear SC B4 Colleagues,
When I first received the kind invitation from B4 to prepare the greetings for this Newsletter, I felt honored and at the same time aware of the responsibility to address to this great community. Therefore, I intend to share some news and thoughts from my side.
At the time of writing, the Centennial Session has already finished, and it was a very interesting and creative way to celebrate Cigre’s centenary and discuss new ideas with old colleagues and friends. Particularly the B4 GDM meeting was complementary to the paper’s session held last year, also in a virtual format. It is always important to develop ways to overcome the difficulties imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
This pandemic severely affected Brazil. We have lost precious lives, but vaccination has been massively applied to the elderly in a prioritized manner and has recently been given to the youngest. With a population of 214 million people, the pandemic has seriously shaken the country. There are more than 20.75 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 580 thousand deaths (August 31st), placing the country in the third position in the world in cases, and second place in deaths, in terms of absolute numbers. In relative terms, unfortunately, Brazil is in third place in deaths, considering countries with more than 10 million inhabitants and in the leadership of deaths among countries with more than 100 million inhabitants. The country has been fighting against the virus to reverse this unfortunate trend, and good news has now appeared with a notable decrease in the number of deaths and hospital admissions………..