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Catalonia foresees that in April the covid will be managed like the flu, without quarantines

The sixth wave of coronavirus infections continues in record numbers in Catalonia, but gradually slowing down. The region’s Department of Health anticipates that in April covid will be managed like the flu, without quarantines and without tests for each case. Catalonia has recovered night mobility this past midnight, after ending the curfew that it had imposed between 1 and 6 in the morning, although it maintains the rest of the restrictions: closure of nightlife, limitation of meetings to 10 people, covid certificate and capacity. Next Monday, the Govern’s covid delegate commission will assess what measures can be made more flexible; the first in the starting line is the meeting limit. In addition, the regional Executive awaits a report from its scientific advisers to determine whether it is convenient to maintain the covid certificate in restaurants, gyms and residences, taking into account that the virus is also transmitted between vaccinated people.

The Minister of Health, Josep Maria Argimon, has indicated that if everything goes according to plan and no other variant appears, the pandemic will be managed “differently” in spring. “If the disease is like it is now, fundamentally mild, there is little interest in counting it on a case-by-case basis,” Argimon stressed. Thus, the forecast is that in April the health system will stop testing for each suspected case or close contact and epidemiological surveillance will be channeled through the collection of samples from some people to see what virus is circulating at each moment. Based on the data collected, the system will calculate the incidence of the coronavirus, carry out sequencing to control mutations and monitor the most serious cases. Argimon has also foreseen that the scheduled quarantines will decline in April, even among those infected, and that the management will be similar to that of the flu: if someone is positive and has a fever or discomfort, the recommendation will continue to be to stay at home or contact the doctor if the situation worsens, but without a confinement protocol like the current one. (Eph)

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