The regional secretary for Health and Civil Protection, Pedro Ramos, reinforced today that the high number of new cases of covid-19 registered this Wednesday, December 22, in the Autonomous Region of Madeira is the result of massive testing of the population.
The government official says that adding up daily cases “doesn’t matter at all because this is the result of a posture and a methodology that is being followed in the Region, which is the massive testing of the population”.
Asked whether the new cases are related to the new variant of the virus, called Ómicron, the secretary with the Health folder says that it has not yet been possible to ascertain since the National Institute of Health Doctor Ricardo Jorge has not analyzed the collected samples in the Region, however, he says again that “naturally there will be more cases in Madeira” of this new variant.
“The contagiousness of this variant is extremely high, naturally that quickly reaches the situation of community transmission”, he says, warning that at this time more than 87% of the population is vaccinated, so the “health situation is completely different” when compared to reality 2020, in which there was community transmission in an unprotected population.
“We are speculating a lot about this variant”
Pedro Ramos recalls that Ómicron is related “only with increased contagion, it is not as serious in terms of illness and hospitalizations”, unlike what happens with infections by the Delta variant “which has more lethality and is responsible for more hospitalizations in intensive care”.
“Madeira does not need to change its situation”
The measures in force in Madeira to contain the pandemic will not change until the end of December, guarantees Pedro Ramos, adding that the Regional Government and health authorities will analyze the epidemiological situation “after the Christmas festivities”.