The chairman of the board of directors of Hospital de Braga said today that that hospital unit is “prepared” for a second wave of covid-19, but stressed that “very important” is “there is no relaxation” in preventive measures.
Speaking to Lusa about the “Braga Closes the Door to Covid-19” program, launched by Braga Hospital, the University of Minho, Braga City Council and the Health Center Groups, João Porfírio Oliveira said that there was a “ significant “reinforcement of resources and personnel at the Hospital and that” a lot has been learned “with the first wave.
According to the official, the Braga Hospital is strengthening the medical team with nine clinicians, has 175 beds for patients with covid-19, has increased the capacity from 40 to 45 intensive care admissions, created more circuits for patients with the new coronavirus and increased the capacity to perform screening tests.
“This is an initiative that has been in preparation for over a month. The hospital and our partners thought it was a good idea, considering the panorama that can be predicted with winter, the arrival of flu, colds, respiratory infections, of having an intervention role in prevention and information ”, said João Porfírio Oliveira.
The person in charge of Hospital de Braga, a reference hospital for covid-19, acknowledged that there was a “relaxation” in the preventive measures: “We have to draw attention to the need for basic hand hygiene care, which seems to me to be rooted , but there was a relaxation in the social distance, in the respiratory etiquette and there cannot be ”, he warned.
João Porfírio Oliveira also recalled that, “when someone has any flu symptoms, which may be covid or not, they should never go directly to the emergency room of the hospital, but call the Health Line 24, so that they can be properly forwarded to the right places ”.
This is because, he said, “if someone with symptoms of covid-19 goes to an emergency, which is a place with patients with many pathologies, they can infect those who are there or catch new pathologies. You can even get the flu and leave with covid-19 ”.
The possibility of a second wave of covid-19 “is a possibility”, he admitted.
“We hope there isn’t, but we cannot remain indifferent to the numbers and what is happening in other countries. So, we can’t just wait for it to happen. We are prepared for it to happen. The truth is that the first one learned a lot from the first wave ”, he assumed.
The covid-19 pandemic has already claimed more than 904,000 deaths and nearly 28 million cases of infection in 196 countries and territories, according to a report by the French agency AFP.
In Portugal, 1,852 people died from 62,126 confirmed cases of infection, according to the most recent bulletin from the Directorate-General for Health.
The disease is transmitted by a new coronavirus detected in late December in Wuhan, a city in central China.
After Europe succeeded China as the center of the pandemic in February, the American continent is now the one with the most confirmed cases and the most deaths.
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