The Minister of Health, Mónica García, does not rule out that masks return to health centers and hospitals if indicators related to flu and covid are exceeded during the coming months of autumn and winter.
“The tools and measures we have against respiratory viruses are the vaccination, hygiene, masks and containment measuresthere is not much more,” said García when asked at the press conference after the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System (CISNS) for the possible return of masks in health centers and hospitals.
Thus, the minister reported that this Friday a document was discussed at the CISNS with the autonomous communities that establishes common criteria for action in flu and covid and that “will take definitive shape” next October 17 at the Public Health Commission.
“It is a technical document that is being worked on in the different commissions and presentationsbut we wanted to unify both the technical criteria and the political criteria as many times the counselors themselves have demanded of us,” the minister explained.
In line, he has assured that this text is being worked on with the Autonomous Communities to anticipate and prevent these situations and that “it does not have to be the Ministry of Health the one who tells the communities what they have to do too.
“It is not just about measures once we are in the scenario, but measures of how we can anticipate those scenarios at the moment in which we will begin to see some indicators that begin to rise, because acting when the curve is rising exponentially We have already seen that it brings us complications,” he explained.
García hopes that with this document, of which all the details will be known on October 17 after the Public Health Commission“complications” like those of last year are avoided. “You already saw the complications we had last year to carry out a measure that we considered to be basic, which is putting on a mask in health centers, when the curve had skyrocketed. We believe that action can be taken sooner and that is why we need this document,” he stressed.
Specifically, the person responsible for Health has explained that the text will serve to propose indicators that allow us to characterize the epidemiological situation based on a combination of different epidemiological indicators such as transmission, severity, incidence rate, hospitalization rate, ICU admission. or lethality. In addition, different scenarios will be established based on these indicators and recommendations will be considered.
“This had only been done previously with Covid-19 and that is why it is pioneering that from the Ministry we are promoting that it now also be done with this year’s flu epidemic so that the bull does not get us,” added the minister. .
