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Virologist João Vasconcelos Costa considers covid-19 outbreaks in homes to be the “big problem” at the moment, but warned that the elderly cannot be “sentenced to life imprisonment” due to measures to contain the virus.
In an interview with the Lusa agency, the researcher defended that there must be “very strict measures” to prevent outbreaks in homes, but these must be weighed against “the most serious alterations” in their physical and psychological health.
João Vasconcelos Costa said he agrees with the statements of the Prime Minister, António Costa, not being able to let the elderly in their homes be without visits from their loved ones, nor “separating families at Christmas” as happened at Easter, but questioned How can this be combined with the pandemic?
Combining the protection of the elderly with their well-being “should be one of the top priorities of the epidemiological protection system at this time“because, he said:” we cannot sentence our elders to life imprisonment. “
The researcher recalled that In other European countries the general trend is to reduce the frequency of outbreaks in homes, but in Portugal the same is not the case.
“Unfortunately, we have seen that there are still outbreaks in homes. In fact, this is a big problem,” said the former director of the molecular virology laboratory at the Gulbenkian Institute of Sciences.
The researcher warned that “if there is, and there is, an increase in the number of cases, it is evident that the danger of new cases entering homes also increases.”
He admitted that “it is a very difficult problem”, that he does not know how it can be solved, “but one of the fears is that this rebound could also be accompanied by a reversal of the trend that was causing a very large decrease in fatality and that we will arrive to have an increase in the number of death cases with special incidence in homes ”.
On the epidemiological situation of covid-19 in the country, João Vasconcelos Costa said that he hopes that “the worst scenario” does not occur.
“The Autumn Winter 2020/21 Plan of the General Directorate of Health seems to be very well prepared and will have great consequences, hopefully, in controlling this resurgence of the pandemic,” he stressed.
As “major concern”, he highlighted “the burden of the National Health Service with all the cases of morbidity that always exist in winter, as they are associated with cases of covid-19”.
“There will also be, inevitably, some confusion” with the usual cases of respiratory diseases and covid-19, which will lead people to “resort a lot to health services.”
In his opinion, Line 24 of the SNS should be prepared for this and there should be a reinforcement of the service and surveillance teams of the covid-19.
Right now what “matters most”, in addition to public health measures, “is to immediately identify the cases, establish the contact list very well, test those contacts, which is not being done properly, isolate them and with what they are trying to break the transmission chains ”.
“This ground operation is fundamental and is in the front line of combat, more than the general confinement measures that no one intends at this time,” he stressed, considering that “the decision not to necessarily test contacts was exaggerated.”
The virologist stressed that “the measures are taken, they are in balance, to the extent that the Government can do, with social and economic needs” and now it depends on each one.
In the first phase of the pandemic, people thought that everything depended on the measures and the Government. “At this time, they depend fundamentally on the compliance and civic sense of each one of following the recommendations” and knowing how to apply them.
“We have to create this collective spirit” and be in solidarity, especially with the elderly and children who “suffered terribly from this” and “do everything possible for them to have a healthy life and psychological development.”
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