[ad_1]
The return for Christmas of the approximately four thousand Madeirans who are studying at higher education institutions on the continent is leaving regional authorities concerned, given the risk of the appearance of associated local sources of contamination.
Earlier this month, a decision by the Madeira executive determined that students returning to Madeira during this period should be subject to stricter controls and additional isolation from other passengers.
While it is normal for those who arrive in the archipelago to take a detection test for SARS-CoV-2 at the airport (for those who do not have a negative test performed within 72 hours of arrival) and then wait in isolation the test result (about 12 hours), university students will have to take a second test and a longer quarantine.
The second covid-19 PCR test will be performed between the fifth and seventh day, after disembarkation. Until the result of that last exam is known, the students must remain isolated at home, in self-surveillance.
The measure is not peaceful. Most of the students arrive in Madeira a few days before Christmas, which means that they will have to be away from their family on that date. “I know isolation is difficult. I am also a father. But it is essential that people comply with this assumption of isolation until the second test. It’s the only guarantee we have, ”he told reporters this week, after dramatizing the speech earlier this month.
“It is necessary to be rational and rationality requires that the distance be maintained during this period of five to seven days before the second test because it is the only way to avoid a potential misfortune,” he argued, suggesting that students take the test of PCR on the continent – the region has signed agreements with six clinical laboratories, in a network of more than 40 collection points from north to south of the country – to shorten the isolation period until the second test is performed.
In Madeira, there are those who doubt the effectiveness of the measure, or the effective compliance. Albuquerque calls for individual responsibility because only then will it be possible to contain the pandemic in the autonomous region, where, since the beginning of October, the number of confirmed cases has more than doubled, from 228, with no fatalities, on October 1. for a total of 749 infections and two deaths, recorded this Friday.
This measure, he justified, is mainly for the safety of the student and their families. Second, it is for the entire community. “It is a critical period, because we know what Christmas represents. But we all have to be responsible, ”he said, referring to the fact that this period is traditionally celebrated in Madeira in close contact with the extended family.
The PS does not understand. Not the measures “necessary to combat and control” the pandemic in the autonomous community, but what he considers a “dual criterion” for those who land at the airport.
“What we do not understand is that this requirement is only required of university students and not of all those who come to the Region,” said Marina Barbosa, a few days later, the Socialist deputy, at the end of a visit to the Region. arrivals at the airport. The measures, given the increase in the number of cases that have occurred, are, considers the deputy, justified, provided that they are “adequate and proportional” to the epidemiological reality of the archipelago. However, the PS finds no justification for only college students to be subjected to this double test. “On average, a university student comes home at this time about 10 days and if he has to stay locked up for so long, he will surely stop wanting to go home at Christmas,” says Marina Barbosa.
