Fundação Portugaluesa do Pulmão considers it too early to abandon the mandatory use of a respirator and other individual protection measures against the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Despite the indisputable progress that we have recorded in combating this epidemic, especially after the success of the vaccination campaign, the epidemiological situation in question indicates the need to maintain a strong level of preventive measures,” the foundation defended in a statement sent to Lusa.
The Foundation asserts that the Delta variant, with a 60% higher infection capacity than its predecessor, and knowledge that the vaccine is not effective enough to prevent infection or transmission of the virus completely, justifies further action.
The foundation also highlights “non-reassuring” factors on the high incidence of cases (310 per 100,000 population, with an average of 2,317 new cases per day in the past week), a high level of active cases (45542) and a mortality level that is “still very telling” (Daily average of 11 deaths in the past week), along with hospitalization levels, in both the ward and intensive care unit (733 and 151, respectively).
“It is too early to consider the end of the mandatory use of a respiratory protection mask in outdoor public places when social safety distance is not guaranteed. In the same sense, we are of the opinion that the use of a mask should remain mandatory in all indoor spaces for the masses”, defends the Portuguese foundation Pulmon .
“The decision to liberalize the use of masks should only be considered when we leave the fourth pandemic wave, when we have a larger proportion of the population fully immunized (highly desired group immunity) and epidemiological signs of SARS-Cov-2 infection show safer evidence of epidemic control.”
The Minister of Health, Marta Temido, stated in the nineteenth of the last century that the decision to use masks on the street is the prerogative of the Assembly of the Republic.
The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, last week defended the end of mandatory use of the mask only in mid-September, and called on young people to be vaccinated against Covid-19 before the start of the school year.
Covid-19 has caused at least 4,472,486 deaths worldwide, among the more than 214.5 million new coronavirus infections recorded since the start of the pandemic, according to the latest report from Agence France-Presse.
In Portugal, since March 2020, 17,711 people have died and 1,033,165 confirmed cases of infection have been recorded, according to data from the Directorate General of Health.
The respiratory disease is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which was discovered in late 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China, and currently with variants identified in countries such as the United Kingdom, India, South Africa, Brazil or Peru.
