The gradual and progressive return to reality will take people to the street and to work and, at this stage, health authorities will closely monitor a panel of indicators that will allow them to understand whether covid-19 is controlled. The number of hospitalizations is one of those indicators. If it reaches 4000 with the reopening of the economy, it means that the responsiveness of health services is very poor.
The number was presented by health experts at the meeting that took place this morning at Infarmed, after which the President of the Republic confirmed that the state of emergency ends on May 2 at midnight. This Tuesday’s meeting was mainly focused on the lack of definition, although the details are only known on April 30, when António Costa presents the calendar of the return to normality.
Sources heard by the PUBLIC explain that there will be a kind of panel of indicators to be monitored in the deconfiguration phase, one of which is used to measure the overload of the health services response. Here, a stress limit was presented for the number of hospitalizations in 4000, which at this stage will serve as an alarm signal.
Experts warn that these 4000 hospitalizations should not happen all at the same time, but for several weeks, close to an average of 1000 new hospitalizations per week (at most). In other words, the response limit of the National Health Service is close to the values of the wave of infections that we are going through at this moment and during which, until now, only 15% of patients have been hospitalized and of these only 25% have gone to Care Units. Intensive. However, if the expected increase in contagion after lifting restriction measures exceeds this average, then the response capacity will enter a dangerous scenario and that can lead to the collapse of the NHS.
This is also why the Prime Minister has insisted that the measures applied by the Government will be evaluated every 15 days, warning that there may be setbacks in lifting restrictions, if it is confirmed that the indicators have worsened.
