The Minister of Health of the province of Buenos Aires, Nicolás Kreplak, warned this Wednesday that a coronavirus wave “of significant dimensions”for which he urged the population to strengthen care and complete vaccination schedules.
However, the official assured, this new scenario will not be accompanied by “a saturation of the health system”, so “new restrictive measures” are ruled out to contain the virus.
According to the weekly report that the Ministry of Health of the Nation released this Sunday, 47 deaths and 33,989 new covid-19 infectionsalmost twice as much as last week.
It is incrementNeverthelessstill does not show “a significant impact” in hospitalizations, affirmed the Buenos Aires minister in declarations to El Destape Radio. Although an increase in consultations with the health system is being perceived, “we are still very far from what was the third wave at the beginning of this year,” he indicated in this regard.
More contagious variant
According to specialists consulted by Page 12the onset of cooler weather and the lack of ventilationthe drop in immune protection, most contagious variants and one low social perception of risk constitute some of the aspects involved in this new outbreak, which the minister of health Carla Vizzotti described as the beginning of a “fourth wave” in Argentina.
This fourth wave is caused, for the most part, by the subvariante BA.2. According to the latest report from Proyecto País (genomic surveillance group of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation), BA.2 is the predominant Omicron lineage in CABA since the first half of April: it was detected in a 87% of cases.
“This subvariant of the Omicron is 30% more contagious, so care must be taken”warned Kreplak in reference to this lineage, which is between 30% and 40% more contagious than the BA.1 subvariant that circulated between last December and January.
In this framework, he asked that people who have compatible symptoms con covid-19 “Isolate yourself for five days, use the chinstrap for five more days and do not expose yourself in closed places”. Likewise, he recommended that “everyone apply the third dose” once morest the coronavirus and recalled that “those who are 50 years old and four months have passed since their third dose, should receive the fourth dose.”
Regarding the pediatric vaccination campaign once morest the coronavirus, Kreplak explained that this week, within the framework of the Federal Health Council, it was agreed “ask for approval of the third dose for boys and girls ages 3 to 11, who can receive the Pfizer vaccine”. Although that definition depends on the Ministry of Health of the Nation, the Anmat and the commission of experts, Kreplak was confident that it will be given in a short time.
Healthcare system
Regarding the possibility of returning to some of the sanitary measures that have been in force in recent years to contain outbreaks of contagion, Kreplak said that according to the parameters observed “There will not be a saturation of the health system”, so “new restrictive measures” will not be adopted.
In the same sense, it was expressed Vizzotti in the latest edition of the Federal Health Council (Cofesa), where he said that the government rules out the announcement of restrictions given that, thanks to the vaccination campaign, this outbreak of infections “finds us in a totally different situation since we have a panorama that allows us go ahead in a new stage of this pandemic.
At Cofesa, the minister also pointed out the importance of continuing to advance in the integration of the health system, beyond the demand caused by the coronavirus. “We have been working in a situation of integration due to the pandemic and we are convinced that we have to take advantage of this opportunity to sustain and deepen it so that it does not depend on the decisions of those of us who are circumstantially in these places today, but rather there is a regulatory framework that allows begin the path of integration of the health system,” he said.