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Argentina eliminates isolation for close contacts after exceeding 130,000 daily cases

2022-01-12T03:17:46.382Z


The rapid spread of the omicron variant threatens the health system due to lack of personnel Row to take a covid-19 test at the Pedro Elizalde hospital in Buenos Aires this Tuesday.Enrique García Medina (EFE) Argentina faces a record spike in covid-19 cases. In the last 24 hours, 134,439 new infections were detected and the positivity in the tests was 66%, which suggests that the real rate of infections is still much higher. The rapid spread of the omicron variant throughout the South Am


Row to take a covid-19 test at the Pedro Elizalde hospital in Buenos Aires this Tuesday.Enrique García Medina (EFE)

Argentina faces a record spike in covid-19 cases. In the last 24 hours, 134,439 new infections were detected and the positivity in the tests was 66%, which suggests that the real rate of infections is still much higher. The rapid spread of the omicron variant throughout the South American country has not been accompanied by an exponential increase in deaths - 54 were reported this Tuesday - or of interned in intensive care thanks to the wide vaccination coverage and the lower lethality of this variant, but It has generated a hitherto unprecedented problem: the lack of personnel due to isolation. Faced with this situation, the Government has decided to make the protocol governing close contacts more flexible: from now on it will not be necessary for them to quarantine as long as they are vaccinated and are asymptomatic.

“People with two doses and a booster don't need isolation;

people with a primary scheme [one or two doses] and who had covid can make isolation more flexible and take a test between the third and fifth day;

the unvaccinated have to be isolated ”, explained the Argentine Minister of Health, Carla Vizzotti, in radio statements.

“We recommend in all cases that social gatherings and mass events be avoided.

And this is based on the fact that the source of infection is precisely mass events and social gatherings, where the risk is greater and the measures of care decrease.

The protocols in the workplace make that much less risky and more stringent monitoring, ”said Vizzotti.

The government announcement, which each province must implement according to its epidemiological situation, brings relief to the health system. In the last week, between 20% and 25% of medical personnel in Buenos Aires were absent from work, mostly due to having tested positive for covid-19 or being close contact of a case, according to the Buenos Aires Ministry of Health.

“Although this wave is not putting stress on the hospital health system due to the occupation of beds, it is putting it at risk of collapse as a consequence of the wave of positives from health personnel, added to the increased demand from all the others. pathologies (demand contained for almost a year and a half) ”, warned this Monday Emmanuel Álvarez, director of the Mariano and Luciano de La Vega Hospital in the town of Moreno, in the Buenos Aires suburbs. Álvarez remarked that "health personnel, like the entire population, are going in and out of contact isolation several times a month" and complicating the proper functioning of the health services. There are surgeries rescheduled for lack of doctors,Comrades exhausted from having to double hospital guards and lack of personnel for the ongoing vaccination campaign against covid-19. Low wages and exhaustion after two years in the front line of the pandemic contribute to aggravating the outlook, according to other health workers.

The situation of the health system is repeated in other sectors of the Argentine economy.

Aerolineas Argentinas has announced the cancellation of flights due to lack of personnel.

In the factories there are not enough hands to cover the different production shifts, according to the president of the Industrial Union, Daniel Funes de Rioja.

Businesses make up as best they can for worker absences.

Some provinces had also anticipated the official announcement.

In Córdoba, the first where the omicron variant circulated in a community manner, the mandatory isolation for close contacts had already been lifted.

In the province of Buenos Aires, health personnel were exempt.

In the Patagonian Río Negro, testing of people with mild symptoms and close contacts had stopped.

While waiting to know the ceiling of the new wave of covid-19, the Argentine government prioritizes the vaccination campaign.

73.5% of the population already have two doses and 17.3% have received a third.

Looking at the end of February, when the new school year begins, the goal is to have immunized as many students as possible.

The Executive is also evaluating declaring covid-19 an endemic disease, which would change the surveillance modality and the case count.

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Source: elparis

All life articles on 2022-01-12

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