“If the state does not have the power to prevent super contagious events, it will have to impose more restrictions”

The Nation’s Ministry of Health reported this Wednesday, March 31, 2021 that, In the last 24 hours, 143 deaths and 16,056 new coronavirus infections have been recorded. In this way, the total number of infected since the start of the pandemic is increasing at 2,348,821 and deaths are 55,858.

According to the epidemiological report, in Argentina There are 3,702 people with coronavirus admitted to intensive care. The percentage of bed occupancy at the national level is 56% and in the metropolitan area of ​​Buenos Aires (AMBA) it is 61%.

“We will surely have more cases in this second wave, but it is in our hands to succeed and, we are already doing it, that if we vaccinate, mortality and hospitalizations will decrease. We ask the citizens of the province of Buenos Aires to redouble their efforts in this last stage. If we do things right, this could be the way to the final step, ”said the Minister of Health of the Province of Buenos Aires, Daniel Gollan.

In this context, Infobae pidió a especialistas que analizaran la “foto” que podemos visualizar hoy en relación a este aumento en el número de casos y muertes en la Argentina por COVID-19, en relación a otros países de la region como Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay y Brasil, Who is it “today, they see their health systems collapsing and they are going through critical and very complicated times ”.

“The cases are increasing at an incredible rate, similar to what has happened in Uruguay, Brazil and Chile sometime ago. Everything seems to indicate that if we do not act on it, we will have exactly the same result in about a month, which is happening today in countries where the pressure on the health system is strong due to the enormous number of infections and the number of interns. If we do the same thing as them, which was not to act for fear of damaging the economy, we will end badly, in a very complicated health situation and also having to impose emergency measures such as quarantine and much stricter curfews, ”he told this media outlet Rodrigo Quiroga, doctor of chemical sciences, specialist in bioinformatics, researcher at CONICET and professor at the National University of Córdoba.

For the infectious disease doctor Roberto Debbag (MN 60253), “The big challenge is -to establish a similarity between the health situation and climatology- try to cope with the hurricane effect, that is, the probability that the world will experience a COVID-19 hurricane due to the four edges of this storm, which are: the new variants, the relaxation of preventive measures, the lack of access to vaccines in such a way adequate and effective immunization programs and the fourth is the likelihood of reinfection ”.

“This around the world is called the COVID-19 hurricane effect And I think that not understanding that this can happen to us is equivalent to not developing an epidemiological strategy and planning the health response in Argentina ”, He said.

On this occasion and in consultation with Infobae, the vice-president of the Latin American Society of Pediatric Infectology, insured: “This probability of facing a hurricane on a daily basis is confirmed by the data. If the state is really not effective in controlling and preventing, for example, underground parties or other super contagious events he will have to impose more restrictions ”.

By definition, supercontacting events are those situations in which few infected individuals, aided by environmental conditions, can infect large numbers of people. The super contagious places and events that lead to these similar outbursts in which the disease spreads with greater intensity son: closed and poorly ventilated spaces, crowded places with continuous exposure to aerosols.

The question of knowing how and when to restrict them it also sparks debate among world experts. An article published last month in the British magazine The Lancet pointed out that “Historically, sporting, religious, musical and other (mass events) events have been the source of infectious diseases that have spread around the world.” But the authors of the article also pointed out that public health measures have helped alleviate this problem in recent years.

For its part, Quiroga, which analyzes the epidemiological surveillance data of the Ministry of Health of the Nation, affirmed: “The right thing to do is to try and take measures to stop the increase in cases and thus save time to continue immunizing without really exploiting the number of cases and internees. The measures to be taken should be those which can have an impact on the number of infections and at the same time they can have a high rate of adherence of the population. The main thing now is to convince the population that these measures will -if they are filled- avoid even harsher measures it will undoubtedly be the future in the medium term if we cannot control the viral circulation. It happened in Chile and Brazil. It all depends on us ”.

He added: “It is essential to return to the strict care we received in November. Everything is to be decided, nothing is inevitable. You must act. Those who do not act because they say it is inevitable that the situation will get worse are the ones who will get there. We can slow down the scale and speed at which this new wave of infections is approaching ”.

New flight

This morning, the eleventh flight of Aerolineas Argentinas left for Moscow to bring more Sputnik V vaccines. Under number AR1068, it took off at 2:05 a.m. from Ezeiza and will arrive at Sheremetyevo International Airport at 3:30 a.m. local time (6:30 p.m. in Argentina on Thursday) and will remain there until 4:30 a.m. local time for carry out vaccine loading work. So He will return home at 4.30 am.

Of the 10 flights to and from the Russian Federation, 3 969 0000 doses prepared by the Gamaleya Institute. Moreover, so far they have arrived 904,000 doses of Sinopharm on the first Aerolineas flight to the People’s Republic of China on February 25, with which, to date, the number of vaccines arriving in the country on Aerolineas Argentinas flights is 4,873,000.

“The other strategy is get more vaccines as soon as possible. For example, through the opening of chords like that of Pfizer with changes in laws if they need to be changed, but also raise internationally with PAHO and WHO the need to block transmission in Argentina by a regional health effect of the southern cone with a global impact. That is to say If the transmission of the Manaus variant infection is not controlled in the southern cone and more specifically in Argentina, the rest of the world will be affected, this is why these international organizations must generate health solidarity to avoid a global impact and initially provide around 20 million doses for the country, ”he stressed. Debbag.

“Vaccination, with all doses of Sputnik V which have arrived, in addition to the doses of Sinopharm now available for people over 60 years of age, it will pick up speed. We won’t reach four million this month but this rhythm will resume for next month. If the doses of vaccine needed continue to arrive as they have so far, We could think about vaccinating everyone over 70 and over 60 with comorbidities before the end of next month. More or less the amount of time in which one would expect contagions to stop exploding if we fail to control the viral circulation, ”he added. Quiroga.

Regarding travel restrictions, Debbag highlighted: “I think the first thing to do is to do not encourage travel abroad. It is important to point out to the population that if you travel to countries where there are variants, most of these countries are saturated in their health system and if they contract the disease, they are more likely to have complications and die. By promoting that people do not travel, the probability of frequency of theft is reduced and to this must be added a good policy of PCR tests ”.

“We see in neighboring countries that what is coming is a new pandemic. That’s why it was so important border control. Which was finally implemented, even if in my opinion it was too late and not so strictly ”, he concluded. Quiroga.

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