In an interview with Cadena SER radio, the Spanish leader indicated that the change would mean treating Covid-19 as an “endemic disease” rather than a pandemic.
“Let’s begin to evaluate the evolution of Covid-19 with different parameters,” said Sánchez, who affirmed that the lethality of the disease is at 1% compared to 13% registered in 2020.
The president stressed that “the situation” of the pandemic “is not that of a year ago.” “We know the virus better and pending what the reports say, (the variant) Omicron seems to have a milder incidence,” he said.
Sánchez opted for the “same model” to control the evolution of the coronavirus as for the flu: “Stop counting the cases, the tests …”, he explained.
The President of the Government confirmed that it is a plan that works through a network of health centers and professionals that report the evolution of coronavirus outbreaks, which is technically called “sentinel surveillance” instead of the current method of ” universal surveillance “.
The method would be similar to a survey, similar to the one used in Europe to track influenza.
He also added that this is a debate that the Executive is “trying to open at the European level”, and stressed that the Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, discussed the proposal with some of her counterparts in the European Union (EU).
Sánchez predicted that this January there will be a peak in infections due to the high transmission of the Omicron variant, which is very easy to spread, and then the curve will begin to fall.
The Spanish president also announced that in January Spain will buy 344,000 doses of oral antivirals that Pfizer is manufacturing and that, as he stressed, “reduce by 88% the possibility of hospitalization for vulnerable patients.”
He also stated that he plans to control the prices of antigen tests. Thus, he has indicated that his team is going to “mess with the control of prices” and that they are going to do something to regulate them. However, he did not detail what the measures will consist of.
Some 8 million primary and secondary level students are resuming classes in Spain today.
Authorities shortened isolation periods and relaxed requirements to quarantine entire classrooms when outbreaks occur, to avoid major disruptions to schools.
In this regard, the president assured that the conditions for returning to schools after the Christmas holidays are “safe.”
“We must have confidence in the work of the technicians and in a vaccination widely supported by children,” said Sánchez, who recalled that the objective is that on February 7, 70% of minors have the first dose and in the week from April 18, 70% have the complete guideline.
Finally, on the possibility of implementing measures to force vaccination of people who have not yet done so, he replied that it is a debate “relevant to other parts of Europe” but not in Spain, where 90% of the population has the complete guideline .
Despite a successful vaccine rollout, Spain is grappling with an unprecedented rise in coronavirus infections, caused by Omicron.
The weekly average of infections exceeds 100,000, more than half of those calculated a few weeks ago.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Spain has accumulated 7.16 million cases and 89,934 deaths due to the disease.
Source From: Ambito
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