Epidemiologist warns: “Covid's not going away.; we're going to have to live with him”
The expert of the Chilean Society of Epidemiology and advisor to the Panel of Experts Covid-19, Catterina Ferreccio, spoke with Cooperativa and referred to the deconfinement plan initiated by the Government in the regions of Los Ríos and Aysén.
“Infection (in Los Ríos and Aysén) clearly is controlled. There is no high transmission at community level and they have it under control, that is,, that if there is a case they can go, make contact and isolate him and his contacts”, held the expert.
However, faced with the future of this disease Ferreccio clarified that “it's not that Covid is going to go away; rather we will have to live with him. Vaccines are developing, but they will not arrive before a year in Chile”.
“The important thing is that we can identify transmission early and control. In Santiago, transmission, although it has dropped enormously, We still don't know where it is. They arise from cases and always catch us by surprise; They come out of nowhere”, held the epidemiologist.
Regarding the hospital network, The expert noted that although “está comenzando a haber un poco más de espacio en la red hospitalaria y están llegando menos casos tanto a las urgencias como a las UCI (…) pienso que la red todavía está ocupada por Covid más allá de lo deseable”.
Also, Ferreccio señaló que el 80 por ciento de trazabilidad anunciado por la subsecretaria de Salud, Paula Daza, le parece “poco creíble”.