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“While it is true that it was already expected, that there was an evolution in the number of cases, due to the fact that we should not be less concerned,” Ricardo Mexia told the Lusa agency, noting that Portugal has a “high number of cases” of covid- 19.
Despite noting that the response capacity limit of the National Health Service (SNS) has not yet been exceeded, the president of the National Association of Public Health Physicians (ANMSP) warned that if the cases continue on an upward trajectory, the country “There will be difficulties precisely in that answer.”
“The response of the SNS is not unlimited and, therefore, has a limit,” he emphasized, maintaining that if it continues “this pace may be difficult for the SNS to provide the necessary care to all those who need it,” at the same time. time that stressed that it is a “finding that has been happening for a long time.
Thus, in the opinion of the doctor, “it is essential to interrupt the chains of transmission to avoid this increase in the number of cases.”
Ricardo Mexia called for “a reinforcement of the means, that is, in terms of the response capacity of public health units.”
“The units, with the resources they have, have a special difficulty in being able to carry out all the epidemiological surveillance tasks,” he emphasized.
Portugal today registered five more deaths related to covid-19 and a record number of 1,646 new cases of infection by the new coronavirus, according to the epidemiological bulletin of the General Directorate of Health (DGS).
Since the beginning of the pandemic in March, this is the highest number of cases of infection. The second largest record occurred on April 10, with 1,516, and the third most recent, this Friday, with 1,394 new cases.
In view of these data, Ricardo Mexia also considered that what “eventually will concern more are the impacts of the number of cases, that is, what refers, on the one hand, to hospitalizations, on the other hand, to intensive care needs ”and, also,“ associated mortality ”.
Asked if the solution to counteract the increase in new infections by covid-19 should go through a new confinement of the population, the president of the ANMSP admitted this hypothesis.
“I think this is a measure that neither of us want nor desire, but (…), if we really don’t have an answer” through the “reinforcement of human and material means, to be able to interrupt the transmission chains, if the different activities economic entities do not do their job in terms of adapting and minimizing risk and if the Government does not have the means to allocate the services so that they can give an adequate response ”and if the public does not do their part to comply with the recommendations, it will be“ difficult “” find another solution, “he warned.
“The resources we have are these, if they are not enough I think that a more restrictive measure may eventually be the only one that, when approaching that limit, that red line that is the response capacity of the SNS, I do not see many alternatives that we can use ”, he concluded.
Portugal represents at least 2,067 deaths associated with covid-19 in 85,574 confirmed cases of infection, according to the latest bulletin from the Directorate General of Health (DGS).
