The regional secretary of Health, despite classifying that the vaccination of children “is progressing at a good pace”, confesses that the process does not satisfy him.
“If you ask me, yes, I would say that I am not satisfied, because we have vaccinated 530 children out of the 14,715 that we want to vaccinate by January, before the start of the school year.”
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The regional secretary for Health and Civil Protection, Pedro Ramos, said this afternoon that “87% of the vaccination has started and 85% is complete” and has again called for the population to be vaccinated, as cases are increasing in Portugal and in Worldwide.
Some testing posts will be open on December 24, 25 and 26th. The secretary in charge of Health states that all information about times and places are available on the IASAUDE website. I will see if I can get a list of these.
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In a month, more than 500 thousand tests were carried out.
At the conference taking place this afternoon at the Regional Health Department, Pedro Ramos revealed that 925,170 antigen tests have already been carried out in 71 collection stations, with 14 new stations opened this week.
On the occasion, the government official revealed that of the 71 collection stations, 48 are pharmacies and 23 are clinics, with 14 new stations already in place.
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Stressing that the Regional Government continues to monitor the pandemic evolution, Pedro Ramos says that Madeira is “the only region in the country” that is massively testing and asks the population not to be alarmed by the number of cases in recent days, since that the positivity rate in the Region is 0.4%.
“It is necessary to see that our positivity rate, despite having more than 500 thousand tests per 100 thousand inhabitants, is 0.4%”, therefore, “there is no need to be too alarmed”, added the government official, noting that 38 people hospitalized, only two are in intensive care.
Which means that “vaccination and testing are extremely important, but the mask is even more important to detect, isolate and break transmission chains”, he concluded.
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All testing covers Porto Santo and Madeira, but the cases registered there only concern Porto Santo. Today, there are over 85 active cases in Porto Santo, a number that could increase, as they did not comply with the protection recommendations in several events.
With 96% of the vaccination rate, Porto Santo should have had fewer cases, revealed Pedro Ramos, who added this afternoon that people must continue to test and be careful with the situations that resulted in several cases. “The cases in Porto Santo did not happen because people are not vaccinated, but because they are not complying with the recommendations”.
There were events in which the recommendations were not complied with and are conditioning all municipal activity and other institutions that are suffering from it.
“A trip to Porto Santo is planned” by the officials and the vaccination team “in the week between Christmas and the end of the year”, of course, if “sanitary conditions allow it”, said Pedro Ramos.
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