The director general of Health, Graça Freitas, defended this Saturday that the introduction of more restrictive measures, such as mandatory isolation for all, as some doctors have defended, “does not solve everything”. Graça Freitas believes that the best way to fight the pandemic of the new coronavirus (Covid-19) is with community measures, such as hand washing and social detachment.
“Quarantine does not solve everything. We have already said that the only way to smooth the curve is to have a set of measures permanently on the ground. Obviously, social isolation, whether for those who are not sick, or in stricter restraint for those who are sick or have been in contact, is very important ”, said Graça Freitas, in a press conference, after the new epidemiological bulletin on the new coronavirus.
Graça Freitas stresses that combating this pandemic “is something that can only be done with a set of measures”. “No single measure is sufficient,” he said. The Director-General of Health pointed out that there are “four essential pillars in the fight against Covid-19:“ detect, test, treat and find ”the contacts of the injected people, so that afterwards one can come into contact with people who have been in contact with them .
“One of these pillars is the constant reinforcement of our services and our response capacity. Every day we have to strengthen this capacity, spend resources, reintroduce resources and manage this. The second is to detect positive cases early and treat these cases according to your clinical condition. Then find the contacts of these people to act accordingly, ”he said.
Graça Freitas stated that, in addition to this, “community measures” should be adopted, such as washing hands, cleaning surfaces more frequently, not coughing at others and adopting social distance. He also said that “about 80% will be treated at home because they will have clinical criteria for that”.
If everyone complies with these criteria, Graça Freitas considers that it is possible to “prevent some cases of infection from the disease, flatten the disease curve and, with this, save lives”.
The Directorate-General for Health (DGS) announced this Saturday that there are a total of 1,280 positive cases in Portugal, 260 more compared to Friday. Of these cases, 156 people were hospitalized across the country and 35 intensive care. The health authority also revealed the existence of 12 fatalities in the country and 9,854 confirmed cases of infection. There are still 1,059 people still waiting for the results of the Covid-19 laboratory tests.
Regarding the number of deaths, Graça Freitas admitted that it may still increase, but “it is within the forecast”.
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