Flu and covid infections have multiplied by 10 in a few days, with an incidence of 1,500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the Valencian Community. The Minister of Health, Marciano Gómez, has also indicated that the maximum peak of infections of respiratory viruses in this second wave of infections is expected to be reached in two or three weeks in the Valencian Community, and has announced that, to avoid collapses hospitals, “special measures” will be adopted such as setting up beds in health centers and arranging admissions to private hospitals if necessary.
In addition, he has recommended the use of the mask in cases necessary to avoid contagion and has indicated that the preventive medicine services of each hospital, which work “very, very well”, will determine, given the number of incidents, when its use is mandatory in center.
Gómez made these statements before getting vaccinated against covid and flu and in this regard he has once again encouraged the population to get inoculated against respiratory viruses to “protect not only yourself, but also your environment, your loved ones , to their co-workers”, in addition to avoiding a collapse of the health system.
In that sense, he explained that in the Valencian Community we are still in the ascendancy of a second wave, since respiratory infections increase with the arrival of the cold and with the increase in social contact, as happens at Christmas, but it is estimated that In two or three weeks – around January 22 – the downward curve can begin.
Thus, the incidence in primary school is 1,500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and, although cases in the emergency room are also increasing, he has assured that “the patients who arrive are being taken care of perfectly and at this time there is no collapse either in hospitalizations or in intensive”.
Gómez will hold an urgent meeting tomorrow with the General Directorate of Hospital Care and with the socio-health coordinator to “try to enable the necessary means to be able to take on the patients who may come with complete peace of mind and quality.”
Thus, special measures will be adopted such as enabling beds in social health centers and “if necessary, arranging beds with private hospitals.” “We are going to try to put all the necessary means at the disposal of citizens to avoid, as far as possible, the seasonal collapses that occur year after year,” he guaranteed. However, he has pointed out that “like every year when the peak is reached, it is something cyclical to have a patient at the emergency door” waiting to be admitted.
So far, the Ministry of Health has administered around 1,025,000 doses of the flu vaccine, around 770,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine and more than 25,000 doses against the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). “We want to accelerate this rate of vaccination because it is the best form of protection,” he insisted.
On the other hand, regarding the expiration situation of the stored doses of the drug Paxlovid against covid-19, he recalled that the use of this antiviral was approved at a time when the pandemic situation was “serious” and “there were to take urgent measures”. Thus, the Ministry of Health distributed this drug to the communities to prevent hospitalization in high-risk and vulnerable patients.
Gómez has pointed out that “the doses were administered to the extent that they were necessary” and “at this moment we effectively have an excess, as in the rest of Spain and the world.” Therefore, “since Paxlovid contains two active ingredients, we will try to reuse one of them.”