The head of the Region Health Authority announced today that two of the four local transmission chains of covid-19 identified on the island of São Miguel, the largest in the Azorean archipelago, have already been “extinct”.
In the Azores, on March 25, the first local transmission chain was identified and, since then, a total of seven transmission chains in the region have been identified.
The head of the Regional Health Authority, Tiago Lopes, spoke in Angra do Heroísmo, in Terceira, at the daily situation about the evolution of the covid-19 outbreak in the Azores, where he added that Flores, Corvo and Santa Maria continue “without any registration ”of positive cases of infection by covid-19, while the municipalities of Vila Franca do Campo, Lagoa (both in São Miguel) and Calheta de São Jorge“ fail to register active positive cases today ”.
The islands of Faial and Graciosa remain with five cases each of infection by covid-19.
Taking stock of the seven local transmission chains, the official explained that, on Terceira Island, the two primary local transmission chains of the new coronavirus, originating from a trip abroad, are “confined”, the same happening with Pico, whose primary transmission chain, originating from a trip abroad in the region, “is also confined”.
Tiago Lopes, also regional director of Health, said that “it is considered to be extinct”, through “the total recovery of the three positive cases”, one of the primary transmission chains in the municipality of Povoação (São Miguel island), with “origin in trip abroad”.
“On the other hand, in the municipality of Ponta Delgada (island of São Miguel) another chain of transmission, also primary, through possible contact with a resident citizen on the continent, we also give up, today as extinct, through the recovery of three positive cases that originated it ”, he said.
As for the other two transmission chains, on the island of São Miguel, namely one in Ponta Delgada and the other in the municipality of Povoação, “any one of them is confined”, according to the Azores Health Authority.
According to the same official, the chain that originated in Povoação and that “gave rise to a chain of primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary transmission and that involved 68 positive cases” is “equally confined, not having over the past few days and over the last week any record of dissemination and spread at the community level ”.
Still in relation to that transmission chain that originated in the municipality of Povoação, the official recalled that there was “the concern with secondary, tertiary and quaternary transmission that originated, namely through the impact it had on the Hospital of Ponta Delgada and Lar of elderly people in the Northeast ”, but“ so far there is no record of new cases associated with that chain, nor any type of dissemination or spread at the community level ”.
São Miguel has “no identified cases” of covid-19 “for four days”, Terceira “for about three weeks”, Graciosa “for a week”, São Jorge without infected records “for five weeks” , Pico “for almost three weeks” and Faial “without cases for about four weeks”.
In the Azores, the predominant age group of infected people remains “above 80 years of age due to the impact of the number of cases at the level of the Nursing Home of Santa Casa da Misericórdia do Nordeste” (São Miguel) and with “a greater predominance of the female gender ”, Said Tiago Lopes.
The regional official indicated that there are 663 cases in the Azores that await results or harvest and 2145 active surveillance, showing that “today was the day when there was a greater number of cases recovered in the Azores since the beginning of the outbreak”.
So far, a total of 138 cases have been detected in the Azores, with 34 recovered, 10 deaths and 94 positive active cases of infection with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes covid-19 disease, 70 in São Miguel, three in Terceira, five in Graciosa, two in São Jorge, nine in Pico and five in Faial.
The 381 analyzes carried out in the two reference laboratories in the Region ”(São Miguel and Terceira) in the last 24 hours did not reveal positive cases of covid-19 in the region, but there is a death of a 99-year-old woman who was hospitalized at the Center of Health of the Northeast, in São Miguel, and seven new cases recovered, five of whom were men, between 23 and 52 years old, residing on the islands of São Miguel, Terceira and São Jorge, and two women, aged 19 and 59, resident in São Miguel.
Across the country, there have been 903 deaths associated with covid-19 in 23,864 infections with the new coronavirus to date, according to the Directorate-General for Health.
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