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The epidemiologist Manuel Carmo Gomes will no longer participate in the meetings that bring together experts, politicians and social partners in Infarmed. The news was advanced by the prime minister during the meeting on Tuesday and confirmed upon his departure by the Minister of Health, Marta Temido. The professor from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon also participated in the meeting this Tuesday, in a critical intervention to combat the pandemic in Portugal. For the PUBLIC, he rejected the idea that the decision to stop making presentations on Infarmed is related to his disagreement with the policy that the Government has followed.
“I will continue to support Infarmed meetings, I will be able to attend to clarify doubts. Now I am no longer obliged to make presentations, because I am very overwhelmed with the Technical Commission for Vaccination [da Direcção-Geral da Saúde, comissão de que é membro] and why the classes [na Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, onde é professor] we are going to start ”, explained Manuel Carmo Gomes to PUBLIC.
The epidemiologist rejected the idea that his decision is related to the disagreement with the measures adopted by the Government. “It is not true. This is political exploitation. The Minister of Health even encouraged me to speak, when she knew what I was going to say, because we spoke before. [da reunião]”, He guaranteed.
“The Prime Minister announced that Professor Manuel Carmo Gomes will no longer be part of the group of experts in ‘Encuentros Infarmed’, for professional reasons. Their contribution has been decisive in the fight against the pandemic. We must thank him for his public service, which will undoubtedly continue in the university, ”Deputy Ricardo Baptista Leite, from PSD, wrote on Facebook.
Test, test, test
In the meeting this Tuesday, Manuel Carmo Gomes defended that “the test is the main weapon that we must use, not confinement” and defined three “red lines” to take severe measures if they are exceeded: “We cannot have an R [índice de transmissibilidade] reaching 1.1 for many days ”; “We must have a percentage of positive tests that should not reach 10%”; and “an incidence that does not exceed 2000 new cases per day.” These last figures correspond to 1,500 people hospitalized, 200 of them in intensive care units.
“They are [dados] very objective, clear and, if they are communicated in advance, people know when we can suspect it ”, said the specialist. He also said that it was important to stop the importation and spread of variants and to increase molecular surveillance.
“We must have an aggressive response, establish red lines. If these are overcome, we must act very aggressively in relation to the epidemic. There are also concerns from large groups of European scientists regarding the presence of the variants, because they will only aggravate the situation and make a change in strategy more urgent ”, he reported.
The professor of Epidemiology at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon stated that the measures are taken late, in a try to “follow the epidemic”, contributing to a polarization of public opinion on the restrictions applied to contain the virus. “The way we have been dealing with the epidemic is to read the indicators – which are usually seven days behind – take action in response that appears to be appropriate for the situation, then it takes from a week to 15 days to see the action result, normally the measures are not enough and we continue with this ”, criticized Manuel Carmo Gomes. with Sónia Sapage
