April 25th at 6 pm, taken from the press conference.
• 0 new positive
• 10 new cases recovered. 6 -Funchal, 1 Câmera de Lobos, 2 Santa Cruz, 1 Dutch national.
• 31 total recovered
• 154 new tests performed in the last 24 hours
• 1 ( only one ) hospitalized in the general inpatient quarantine unit.
• 880 suspected cases to date of which 758 were negative and 86 positive.
• 55 active cases remain at present.
• 27 people in self-surveillance. ( they report in if they develop any symptoms)
People under vigilance 421 139 in designated accommodation, 11 in Porto Santo, 3 in Caniçal, 47 in Santa Cruz, 46 in Machico, and 32 in Cabo Girão.
Stay at home, please!
The regional government did not take part in the usual festivities as we are all in this together and the rules are for all.
Dr Ramos mentioned that they had many plans to put in motion at the beginning but were not always allowed to act, and gave a speech on how they have done all they could to keep the people safe.
The resumption of activities will happen soon, but the restrictions will continue.
We will have to learn to live with these restrictions until we have the vaccine.
Issues raised by reporters
1. Reporter was worried about the health services that have been minimized due to the virus. Dr Ramos said there were many treatments still taking place like chemo etc and dialysis. He says the extra measures that have to be taken to safe guard all the patients has made it more difficult to attend to cases that were not absolutely necessary and could be posponed. Testing for covid-19 had to be done on everyone entering the health facilities. Vaccines are still being administered and the emergency rooms were still open 24 hours a day. The testing for breast cancer is soon to be re- opened
2. Double testing for recovered patients and these 10 patients today have also been done that way.
3. Masks wanting to know if they can move it along because they now want us all to wear them. DR Ramos says they are intensifying the delivery of the masks.
4. Psychological effects on the people who are the positive and the public due to lockdown?
Dr Gouveia said there is a phycologist available to attend to the people in the hotels and the patients who have gone to the emergencies with symptoms of stress due to the lockdown are also being attended to by phycologists and treated. There is also a call centre that caters for people who need assistance.
5. Testing of temperature at restaurants is being looked at to enable the opening of these establishments. It is one of the measures that are acceptable, and this has been done in many facilities such as the prisons, homes for the aged and other care centres. It was used at the very beginning to filter people who were infected which were then found to be positive. We should all test our own temperature when we go out in the public domain. It has been said by the justice department that this is against the rights of protection of information. We are in a pandemic and extra measures need to be looked at. People will need to ask if they mind having the temperature taken with adequate non-contact temperature measuring apparatus.
6. Once we start going back to normality we will have to continue to have the right to close off an area so that if there is a re-emergence of positive cases as happened in Câmera de Lobos we will have to close of the area so that the other areas can continue to function as we start to take up our normal functions, of course with all due care and protocols in place.
7. Reporter query on safety measures at the hotels where people are being served meals by different staff and he thinks they need to be tested on a regular way. Answer was, a team of health experts are guiding them with the measures that are used at any unit at hospitals and they are being monitored by inspectors on a regular basis.
Dr Goveia finished off with a quote from Cardinal Tolentino Mendonça, that made her think about all of us in isolation and the others who are in obligatory confinement.
“ The experiences of liberty give us the capacity and the hope to support the moments of obscurity
and the moments in which we feel imprisoned give us the strength, resilience and sense of humour to live the times of liberty.”
She went on to say life is just that, a sequence and we go on with our experiences fortifying our being.
We are now going to cultivate the strength, resilience and sense of humour to live the liberty that is waiting for us in the future.
This is a lot of information, and I presume translated from Portuguese. When I have the source I will link to it, or a name, and hope to bring these updates on a regular basis.