“From the moment vaccination began to accelerate, we began to face a situation that was not considered in the government’s risk matrix, which is the question of disease severity,” he told Lusa Miguel Guimarães the next day. That another meeting of experts will be held in Infarmed on the epidemiological situation in Portugal.
The Medical Association’s (OM) proposal, developed in collaboration with Instituto Superior Técnico, adds to the two existing indicators – incidence and transmissibility (Rt) – three more: lethality, admission to the ward and admission to intensive care units.
These indicators allow us to assess the severity of the disease, and also reflect the effects of vaccination against SARS-CoV-2, and this is what he would like to see in the government risk matrix, to which he sent the new matrix, explained the Chairman.
For its part, the Ministry of Health informed Lusa that these data have already been taken into account in decisions related to the epidemic, the same justification that was also given to OM in a letter delivered on Monday, and sent any changes until after the Infarmed meeting, which is taking place today. .
“We have accomplished our mission,” said Miguel Guimarães, considering that the new indicators are “the best way to protect the economy and health.”
“This indicator, since it includes the different data and its weight, gives us the true picture of what is happening,” he said.
According to OM’s proposal for a new risk matrix, the epidemiological situation has witnessed a positive development in recent days: establishing level 100 as critical and level 80 as warning, Portugal surpassed 92.8 points on July 13 to 86 points on Sunday.
“At this moment, we can comfortably say that we are going through a positive development, a development that allows us to breathe better, and will allow the government to make decisions with stronger evidence,” the president said.
He added that these decisions do not need further imprisonment and could even include an editorial majority.
On the other hand, the new indicators also make it possible to identify other trends that may deserve special attention, with regard to the progress of vaccination in Portugal, such as the increase in the proportion of young people being hospitalized due to the coronavirus.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused at least 4,163,235 deaths worldwide, among more than 194.1 million cases of the novel coronavirus, according to AFP’s latest balance sheet.
In Portugal, since the beginning of the epidemic, in March 2020, 17,301 people died and 954669 cases of infection were recorded, according to 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 and Peru.
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