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The daily number of deaths related to covid-19 has been increasing and could even reach 100 deaths per day in the coming weeks, depending on the responsiveness of intensive care and people’s adherence to containment measures , according to the professor and researcher of the Department of Mathematics of the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Henrique Oliveira. “If the measures of this ‘mild state of emergency’ have little effect, we can reach 100 deaths a day. If, from now on, we begin to feel the effects of the measures adopted, it is possible to reach 80 deaths a day and then we will begin to decrease ”, anticipated the PUBLIC.
The Minister of Health, Marta Temido, said this Friday that she is “concerned” about the lethality of the disease “which has increased in recent days.” And, speaking during a press conference in Porto, after having passed through the Peñafiel hospital, whose response capacity was saturated, which forced the transfer of dozens of patients to other hospitals, the Chief of Health warned: “We have to to realize that we are not free to have this type of pressure and this type of high lethality in the coming days ”.
“It is very possible that the situation will get worse, especially if the population does not take the measures very seriously,” agrees the researcher, admitting that the lethality of covid-19 could almost double, before starting to decrease.
The latest bulletin from the Directorate General of Health (DGS) points to 52 deaths related to this infection in 24 hours. There were 59 deaths on Wednesday, the highest daily figure since the pandemic began. Yesterday, the country officially registered a cumulative total of 166,900 infections and 2,792 deaths.
More than 500 thousand infected
The official fatality rate is set at 1.7%. It is well below the 4.37% registered by the country in June, which was only possible, in the opinion of the researcher, because “the official lethality of the disease was greatly reduced with the greater number of tests.” Actually, the IST researcher points to a fatality rate much lower than said 1.7%. This is because not all infections appear in the statistics. “The lethality that the world literature indicates for Portugal is 0.5% or 0.6% and my team and I estimate that the real fatality rate is still a little lower, given that the official number of infections is much more smaller than the real one ”, he explains.
According to the researcher, by the way, Portugal must have already “crossed the barrier of 500 thousand infected”. “There are many asymptomatic people and many people with mild symptoms that have not been tested and will never be done,” he explains, recalling that the serological tests carried out by experts from the Ricardo Jorge Institute (INSA), in the context of the first survey of immunity of the population, estimated that in July there were already 300 thousand people exposed to the new coronavirus, six times more than the number of confirmed cases.
But now Henrique Oliveira admits that the real fatality rate (the ratio of total deaths to total infections) may increase again if the country fails to avoid saturation of intensive care.
In this context, the researcher considers that the key to combat the spread of SARS-CoV-2 may lie in simple measures such as the free distribution of quality masks to the population. “Many of the masks that people wear are of very poor quality,” he suggests, referring to community masks, many of which “are made with fabrics that, after a few days, have a porosity that lets everything through.” And “many of the people who use public transport every day because they have to work, do not have money to buy new masks every day,” he reinforces, including the dissemination of risk maps and very clear information among the measures he considers most effective in fighting the pandemic.
In the latest DGS report, there were 340 covid-19 patients admitted to intensive care. But, as the Secretary of State for Health, António Lacerda Sales, recalled this Wednesday, the country’s capacity to respond to a pandemic peak can reach 852 intensive care beds.
“Great pressure” in hospitals
In statements to journalists, Marta Temido highlighted the effort made to relieve pressure at the Peñafiel hospital, thanks to the transfer of patients to the Fernando Pessoa University Hospital and to various units of the National Health Service (SNS). Not only in the North, but also in the Hospital de Santa Maria, in Lisbon. The Centro Hospitalar e Universitário Lisboa Norte, which increased the number of nursing beds dedicated to covid-19 to 120, said that it has “already 19 places reserved” for patients transferred from the North region: nine for patients already transferred from the Centro Hospitalar Tâmega e Sousa and ten places for patients in Av. Centro Hospitalar Médio.
“The bet is to look for a proximity response. But when a region begins to become saturated, it may be preferable to move to hospitals further away, to have an oxygen bag to respond, “said Temido, who, questioned about the agreements with the private sector, said that” the first responses begin to appear covidas. ”, In addition to the Fernando Pessoa University Hospital. CUF Porto Hospital has already received four covid patients from the Centro Hospitalar Tâmega e Sousa.
“Hospital Penafiel is at the center of the hurricane right now. More pressure is normal. No SNS unit is free from being under pressure, “said Temido, adding that Centro Hospitalar Médio Ave, Centro Hospitalar Entre Douro e Vouga and even the end-of-line hospitals in the region” are also feeling great pressure. ” “We are not free to feel pressure and high mortality again in the coming days,” he admitted.
Regarding requests for more hiring of health professionals, the minister stated that “the market is not available at this time and many professionals have become ill.” But he assured that the means will not be lacking: “The market does not have people immediately to be hired, but we are using other ways to solve the problem.”
Marta Temido was also concerned about the delays in conducting epidemiological surveys, which are essential to limit transmission chains. The public health unit of the Vale do Sousa Health Center Group conducts about 300 epidemiological investigations per day, “but this corresponds to the number of cases that are being admitted.” “There is a set with more accumulated days” that the minister hopes to be able to recover in 15 days to three weeks.
