From pandemic to endemic, Spain (and beyond) is starting to look at Covid differently
For the Spanish prime minister, the socialist Sanchez, the time has come to monitor Covid in a different way. Here are the news being studied by the government in Spain
The "zero-Covid" strategy attempted several times by China by closing borders and imposing total or partial lockdowns does not seem to give the best results and, in fact, many experts believe that it is neither credible nor to impose restrictions comparable to those of almost two years ago nor vaccinate the entire world population every 4-6 months in order to no longer register Covid cases.
The virus is among us, but we need to learn to live with it in what is already the "new normal", according to many observers . In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced that "it may be time to monitor the pandemic in a different way", confirming what was already anticipated by the Spanish newspaper El País .
WHAT REASONS THE WORDS OF SANCHEZ
Sanchez's government, according to Spanish newspapers, believes that the apparent decline in the number of deaths linked to the pandemic could lead to the use of alternative monitoring methods. Not surprisingly, the Spanish health authorities have been working on this transition for months.
"We have the conditions to open, gradually and with caution, the debate at a technical and European level, to begin evaluating the evolution of this disease with different parameters from those we have up to now", said Sanchez during an interview with Cadena Ser radio station quoted by Agi .
The premier then recalled that in Spain over 90% of the population over 12 has completed the vaccination cycle.
THE HYPOTHESIS ON THE TABLE
El Pais speculates that the next step of the government led by the socialist Sanchez will be to start treating Covid with an approach more similar to a common flu: without the need to carry out tests before the appearance of a minimum symptom and without counting every case of contagion.
“We have to respond with other tools, more related to vaccination or self-protection with masks. The situation is not that of a year ago ”, explained the premier.
WHAT IS THE "SENTINELLA" PLAN
The system called "sentinel", writes Askanews , provides the same method used for the flu. Instead of denouncing every case of Covid, which in the long term would become unsustainable, "a group of doctors is chosen with the aim of creating a statistically significant sample distributed in key points – including schools – that allows us to calculate how the disease spreads , the lightest and the most serious ".
According to the news agency, 5 communities have already started surveillance with this system in pilot mode in primary schools and another 9 in hospitals.
HOW IT WILL WORK
"The sentinel signaling points must be chosen in a certain way, so that they are representative of the population of the monitored area, so that following the experience we already have in influenza surveillance, we will be able to know the epidemiological evolution and the characteristics of the circulation of a particular virus with a sample of what is happening. With surveillance systems in place, we would probably be able to have accurate, higher quality information and what is happening could be prevented, ”explained Amparo Larrauri , head of the surveillance group for influenza and other respiratory viruses at the National Center. of epidemiology (Cne).
NOT ONLY SPAIN
"We must evaluate the evolution of Covid from the pandemic situation we have experienced so far towards that of an endemic disease," said Sanchez. Words similar to those also uttered by Nadhim Zahawi , British Secretary of State for Education and who until last September was the head of the UK vaccination program: "I hope that we will be one of the first major economies to show the world how to it goes from pandemic to endemic, and then face it for how long it will remain with us, whether it is five, six, seven or ten years ".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/pandemia-endemia-spagna-covid-diverso/ on Mon, 10 Jan 2022 13:34:37 +0000.