The Spanish government is working on a strategy to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic like a normal flu wave. That reports the Spanish newspaper El País. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez also wants to open up this debate at European level. With the more contagious, but less sickening and deadly Omikron variant taking the upper hand across Europe, more and more voices are calling for the strict measures to be celebrated.
In practice, that revision means that Covid is no longer monitored day after day with infection rates, hospitalizations and death rates. Instead, as with a normal flu epidemic, the spread of the disease is estimated on the basis of samples.
The Spanish government has already tinkered with the strategy in recent weeks, but it is the heads of the CCAES, the Spanish Center for the Coordination of Alerts and Medical Emergencies, and the Alert Commission to make the final decision.
“We are also trying to open up this debate at European level. The Minister of Health (Carolina Darias, ed.) has already raised it with the other European specialist ministers,” he said. first Sanchez at radio station Cadena SER. In recent months, there has also been a lot of debate in Spain about the high social and economic cost of the measures, especially lockdowns. Out studies It also appears that, for Spaniards under 50, suicide killed more than Covid.
The main cause for the removal of the panting around the coronavirus, the impact of the Omikron variant on the figures. It is increasingly compared to a normal flu: Omikron is very volatile and contagious, but the chance that someone who is infected will end up in hospital or die from it is quite low. In comparison, in the first wave in Spain, the mortality rate was 13 percent: 13 percent of all infected people died from the virus. Now, during the sixth wave, that figure is still at one percent.
Medical sector
In Spain, this debate also leads to discussions within the medical world. One in three medical associations pleads to turn the Covid page and return to “the old normal”, writes The country. The others think this is too premature, and argued for caution, now that Spain is struggling with a sixth corona wave. In particular, Semfyc, the Spanish Association for Home and Community Medicine, seems to be in favor of a return to pre-corona times; other GP associations and epidemiologists prefer to stick to the current way of working for a little longer.
(ddw)
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