[ad_1]
The mathematician Óscar Felgueiras, one of the experts invited by the Government to advise on the de-definition plan in the field of the covid-19 pandemic, considered this Sunday impossible to always maintain the transmissibility index (Rt) of the SARS-CoV-2 virus below 1.
Óscar Felgueiras highlighted today, during a conference promoted by the Portuguese Mathematical Society, carried out by video call, the importance of maintaining the low incidence of the new coronavirus.
“We should not have Rt above 1. Obviously this is impossible to achieve permanently. At a certain moment we will have few cases and a small variation is enough to necessarily have the Rt above 1, but the objective is clear: we want a low incidence.”, Emphasized the specialist in epidemiology, during the initiative integrated in the celebrations of the International Day of Mathematics.
The advisor to the Board of Directors of the Northern Regional Health Administration (ARSN) warned of the need to “not relax” and have a “perception of risk.”
“It is very important that people constantly have a perception of risk. Things usually start to go wrong when that perception is lost,” Oscar Felgueiras stressed.
The deconfinement plan, presented this Thursday by the Prime Minister, foresees new reopening phases on April 5 and 19 and May 3, but António Costa warned that the reopening measures will be reviewed whenever Portugal exceeds “120 new cases per day for every 100,000 inhabitants in 14 days “or when the transmissibility index (Rt) of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which gives rise to covid-19, exceeds 1.
The mathematician from the University of Porto drew attention to the “usual precautions” that must be taken, so as not to have to back down into uncertainty.
“It is very important to be aware of the risks and that there will be consequences if our behavior changes in a way that does not fit.”Warned Óscar Felgueiras, who spoke at the conference about the role of a mathematician in a pandemic.
The epidemiology specialist highlighted the existence “clearly of a very low incidence” at this time, but is concerned about the new variant, “with which we have not lived long enough to know it so well.”
Óscar Felgueiras recalled having recommended, in the meeting of January 12, in Infarmed, the closure of schools with students from 12 years old, “out of prudence”, after having known “the dimension of the presence of the new variant”. [detetada no Reino Unido] in Portugal, which was already starting to be considerable ”.
“I think it was not valued enough at the time,” said the mathematician today, according to whom “the political option” was to postpone that decision.
“It was very clear to me that the new variant had higher transmissibility. The measures that were underway would not be enough to contain the increase, “added the expert.
The ARSN adviser said he was contacted on January 26, like Raquel Duarte, to make the de-definition plan and for the team to start “thinking about the day after tomorrow.”
“The plan that appears is the simplification of all the work that exists behind it, but that has been thoroughly studied“stressed the specialist, who mentioned” the effort “to try to simplify the technical language in the documentation he presents,” so that it is understood by those who are not specialists. “
For the professor at the University of Porto, “it makes sense” to start with the lack of definition for children.
“We know that children are at much lower risk. They can contract the virus and infect others, but in terms of consequences for them, there is not a great danger,” he said.
Óscar Felgueiras revealed that he had been infected with the virus and had been “symptomatic for three weeks” between late October and early November, when he made his first presentation on Infarmed.
[ad_2]
