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Doctors highlight the “historical role of primary care” during this health crisis
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They ask to transmit to the population that “only the vaccine will not be enough” and the mask will have to be kept
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One million Catalans, a 13% of the entire population of Catalonia, have already passed the covid-19 since the pandemic started a year and a half ago. Specifically, according to the data for this Saturday, Catalonia has diagnosed 1,000,468 positives. Only in Barcelona 1,600,000 people live, so it is as if it had been infected the bulk of the entire population of the capital. There are a million people (specifically, 999.807, this Friday) diagnosed with a PCR test or an antigen test, according to the website dadescovid.cat of the Department of Health; that is, this figure does not include all those who were infected in the first wave and who were not tested because there were none.
While the contagions continue to occur, the vaccination advances unstoppable and in Catalonia it is already immunized with the complete guideline the 83% of the population over 12 years of age. A year ago, the now ‘Minister’ of Health and then Secretary of Public Health, Josep Maria Argimon, predicted in this newspaper that, In autumn 2021, Catalonia would have 70% of the population vaccinated: the prospects have finally been much better.
“Primary was the poorest part of the system before the pandemic and has done a lot during this crisis,” says Camfic
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“What the primary care throughout this year and a half It has been historical despite the lack of resources “, highlights Antoni Sisó, president of the Catalan Society of Family and Community Medicine (Camfic). “Primary was the poorest part of the healthcare system Before the pandemic and what it has done during this crisis has been a lot: diagnose the disease, introduce pulmonary ultrasound into clinical practice to detect it, do tests, follow-up contacts, vaccination … “, adds Sisó.
This GP emphasizes that, “fortunately”, the pandemic is in “low hours” and, therefore, asks to rethink “how to arm the system” to “prevent future pandemics or public health emergencies.” “In the CAP we must recover the diagnosis of diseases that were put aside by covid-19 “, claims.
And also ask Sisó “To be accountable”, because the primary receives in Catalonia only between 12% and 13% of the budget of the Ministry of Health, when the minimum, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), should be 25%. “There’s a primary school strengthening plan which is endowed with 300 million euros over three years: only 1% more than what we have now “, criticizes Sisó, who asks to” plan “for that “resources reach primary care.”
There is a “trickle of cases”
For his part, the internist Pere Sunday, coordinator of the ‘covid plant’ of the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau (Barcelona), recognizes that, despite having already reached this million people who have passed the disease, the epidemiological situation in Catalonia is now “frankly well.” “We have three patients with covid-19 in the conventional ward and four in the ICU. But that does not mean that the pandemic is over: tonight two have been admitted and one of them has gone directly to the ICU. It is no longer a tsunami of cases, but there is still a trickle “, certifies Sunday.
Looking back, he relates that this last year and a half has been more “bearable” in some moments than in others. “In some it has been almost unsustainable. Then things got better when the incidence of the virus and income went down, but then they went back up again “
The health workers warn that the virus has evolutionary capacity and can become more aggressive
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But this huge health crisis has had, precisely, a “Key moment”: the arrival of the vaccine against covid-19. In addition to significantly reducing the number of seriously ill patients, deaths and infections, the population began to perceive “a bluer horizon”.
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Even so, both he and Sisó call for prudence. The delta variant, Sisó recalls, “it shows that the virus has evolutionary capacity” and “it can still evolve into other potentially aggressive forms or those that escape the vaccine”. “Unfortunately this is not over,” says Domingo. I don’t know if this virus will end up being seasonal, but it has proven to be extraordinarily plastic; he knows how to find his way. “
And, although this internist believes that, at least for the moment, there will be no more waves, he does consider it necessary to tell the population that “perhaps the vaccine will not be enough.” “Perhaps other measures will have to be maintained, for example the mask in certain spaces and certain moments. We’ll see, “he concludes.
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