Coronavirus: What Are Governments Doing To Alleviate The Health Crisis?

The official declaration of a Pandemic by the WHO has provided the necessary message to reinforce decisive actions to respond to the proliferation of COVID-19 in all countries, even the hundred of them that have not yet taken action.

With the few means it has, the WHO, its scientists, have been essential to activate the measures underway to limit and slow the spread of the coronavirus, and for others that must be taken. Its function, the most it can do, is precisely to alarm: We are facing a serious epidemic that is spreading worldwide and we still do not have an effective treatment It should be noted that the WHO, even at the risk of being described as alarmist, has long since sounded the alarm, from the beginning and, as is often the case, those who did not listen then, who also criticized the measures in the face of other alarms that Fortunately, they did not go further; they are the ones who now accuse her of passivity.

Now, the WHO will also insist on the importance of detecting the maximum number of affected people and establishing additional measures.

The WHO insists: we must continue fighting the virus with drastic measures

And that more efforts must be dedicated to resources to face possible new waves. The fact is that the (inevitable) officialization of the pandemic cannot lead to any conformism or inaction, as the British seem (seemed) to consider, nor discouragement since the examples of China and South Korea demonstrate that this virus can be fought and controlled. , based on several different strategies. The first, social distancing, including the widespread home quarantine we now face, seems the most limiting, although there is no doubt that it has been effective in China. Another, which South Korea has followed, with an aggressive approach from the beginning, aimed at identifying the greatest number of positive cases possible, including the earliest stages, even using mobile units to search for positive cases in people with very mild symptoms. , to be able to isolate them early at home, along with specific measures for older people, involving a deployment of resources.

We can think that this system is the most demanding in resources and organization, and the most effective, in the sense that a more precise picture of the situation is obtained, with a death rate of less than 1%, and that it has managed not to saturate the health system. But the fact is that South Korea, unlike Europe, was prepared to act decisively from the beginning, not only because we are closer to the first outbreak in China but also because of the experience of having faced MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) last year, which here went quite unnoticed by the general population. Above all, they have been brave, ignoring the impact of new technologies and social networks, which implies being able to know if your colleague or neighbor has the virus when the situation is not perceived as alarming, something that in Europe would have generated serious objections. It’s probably more acceptable here now.

Spain: it acted late, but it acted appropriately

Thus, as an observer of how things are going in our country, we are acting appropriately, not only in our community that has gone as far as possible, but in Spain as a whole, with an aggressive approach now, focused on a social distancing strategy, which in the short term may be tightened, and which, possibly, may be progressively complemented with the South Korean strategy. It is clear that not all governments have taken the threat seriously enough, but this is not the case in Spain, where we already have accumulated instructive experiences. Furthermore, we have had the advantage of being behind Asian countries and Italy and alongside others such as Germany and France, which we have already surpassed in cases and which are already taking similar measures.

It is clear that the current measures are not the result of improvisation but rather a response that, until now, has been reasonable and successful in our community with the means and skills available, based on scientific knowledge and proportional to a situation that evolves and will continue to evolve in a matter of a few days, for a few weeks and with an eye also on the different alternatives and waves that are possible in the future

It has been repeated and it is true, the importance of maintaining tension and complying with these days of confinement in our homes Let us hope that in this way we can successfully complete this social distancing strategy, with generalized confinement, surely longer than what is established by the legislation on which it is based, perhaps less in some communities with fewer cases, and also thinking that, as soon as it is possible, We will complement it with other strategies, such as the massive search for those affected, an increasingly selective confinement, and progressively moving to a more controlled stage in which (hopefully) a significant part of the population will continue to be immunized, and the most serious cases, Currently, older people, but not only, will be able to continue receiving the best health care.

Research progresses

On the scales we can remember other favorable data: we know the C coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 disease; It took less than a week to identify it and a few more days to sequence its genome; We know how to detect it, the available methods are very useful and affordable and there is also progress in the development of even faster ones (few minutes); It presents mild symptoms in most cases, although with a high mortality rate in very elderly people or people who suffer from other health problems; The majority of patients are cured, the virus is inactivated relatively easily with hand washing, with soap and water or with hydroalcoholic gels (mixtures of 75º alcohol with glycerin) if you do not have soap and water on hand; treatments based on diluted bleach or other disinfectants for surfaces, etc., are affordable.

In addition, there are quite a few clinical trials underway with antivirals and although vaccines will take time, work is already underway with several prototypes, in addition to the scientific research of all kinds that is being developed and about which, once again we remember that Providing resources for R&D activities is essential

Above all, we have the best healthcare professionals, with a heroic effort and often limited means, which excites us all, and with initiatives such as that of the students of the medical school, infecting their colleagues from other faculties and schools, spontaneously organizing as reinforcement available and prepared in this phase of reinforced containment, if considered necessary. The main problem faced now continues to be limiting or slowing the spread, avoiding the accumulation of serious cases in short periods of time, which exceed the response capacity of our health system. We will soon see a decrease in the expansion rate we also have to think beyond this wave, since, although here we are in the midst of an epidemic, at a global level it has only just begun.