05/09/2020 - 15:40
- Clarín.com
- Society
At the press conference on Friday night in Quinta de Olivos, the President of the Nation, Alberto Fernández, showed how the entire national territory except the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires (AMBA) managed to achieve the goal established by the government national with regard to the duplication of positive cases of coronavirus every 25 days to achieve greater flexibility in quarantine and thus move to phase 4.
The president said that the citizens and governments of the City and the province of Buenos Aires had done things well, but that it was not enough to achieve the goal, one of the main reasons has to do with the population density of these districts. .
Despite this, the City released some activities , enabled the opening of shops for non-essential activities and authorized recreational walksduring the weekends to children under 16 years of age.
In the AMBA, infections are doubled every 18.8 days , as explained by the president at the press conference on Friday night, but the question is whether the City of Buenos Aires can achieve the values that the national territory has with the population density with the one that counts.
In the City of Buenos Aires, to date, the total number of infections is 2,211 and the deceased are 113.
Sources from the Buenos Aires Ministry of Health indicated that in order to achieve the goal set by the national government they will continue to work "in line with the measures adopted so far" and pointed out that it is important to "comply with the protocols in all cases, in public transport , so that they open the premises that they have to open and always maintaining the social distance ”.
"All the measures are in tune with that objective to reach that number or for us to continue as we are in this flattening of the curve," Clarín was quoted as saying .
Regarding the emergency villas and the nursing homes, the two conglomerates with the highest level of contagion, from the City, referenced: “Work is being done and we must start from the basis that the virus has already entered vulnerable neighborhoods and in the nursing homes, as happened in other parts of the world. We have to take sufficient measures to mitigate as much as possible, that's why the testing was done in Villa 31 and we will continue next week at 1-11-14 . ”
"We believe that as protocols are followed there will not be a significant increase in infections. The main vaccine is social distancing ”, they assured.
Asked about the overcrowding in the cities of the City, they reported that the positive cases "remain isolated for ten days in hospitals or hotels in order to comply with quarantine and social distance."
Angela Gentile, head of the Department of Epidemiology of Children's Hospital Ricardo Gutierrez and member of the expert committee that advises the president, who AMBA reach the figure at country level duplication of cases "possible", although it is not possible to estimate when and that, as experts have been clarifying, Covid-19 is a very dynamic virus .
"Due to the population density, it is a much greater challenge in the City and the suburbs than in the rest of the country," acknowledged the expert.
And he explained: “Until now the City and the suburbs have been accompanying the curve and there has been no exponential increase in the number of cases, as long as we achieve that the increase is controlled as it is being done, while we continue to work strongly with risk conglomerates such as nursing homes and villas, and there is early identification and then isolation to cut the transmission chain , it is feasible to reach that figure. ”
In recent weeks the neighborhoods of Retiro and Flores have the highest rates of contagion in the City. “The increase in Retirement is due to the grouping of cases in the Padre Mugica neighborhood. Likewise, many of the nursing homes with confirmed cases belong to Flores, ”they specify in the Weekly Epidemiological Bulletin prepared by the City Government.
Gentile used as an example the work done in some cities in northern Italy where the number of cases was very large and which, like the City of Buenos Aires, is characterized by having a large population of older adults . “Special work was done in nursing homes, just as it is being done at CABA. It is important to have early detection and to be able to carry out PCR or rapid tests, which serve as an epidemiological indicator. ”
The difference, says Gentile, is that here "the health team that works in these places is moonlighting and that is a risk, it does not help too much."
Regarding the possible risk in the increase of cases after the relaxation of the quarantine with the opening of shops and the recreational outings of children on weekends in the City, Gentile considered: "If it is done in an orderly manner and with social distancing, it should not involve an increase in cases. The boys are the only ones who haven't come out and you also have to take care of your emotional health. ”
"Until a vaccine appears, the coronavirus is here to stay and we have to learn to live with this virus , with social distancing and with habits that we are going to have to acquire in order to take care of ourselves," said Gentile.