Health Minister advocates special guidelines to end lockdown

Brazilian Health Minister Nelson Teich took part in his first press conference and discussed the plans of the new administration. He declared Brazil has fared better than other countries, like the US, Italy, Germany, and France, considering the number of deaths stemming from COVID-19 and the total population.

On the social distancing measures, he said Wednesday (Apr. 22) that the new team should conclude the adjustments to the guidelines devised by former Minister Luiz Henrique by next weekend, in order to advise states and municipalities how social distancing rules should be observed.

As per Mandetta’s recommendations, considering where cases are reported and its assistance capacity (half of beds in the health system to help COVID-19 patients, as well as the availability of health workers and supplies), stay-at-home norms in the country could go from “expanded” to “selective,” with flexibility and resumption of economic activities.

“Isolation is the natural measure to kick off with. But we can’t forgo an exit plan. A vaccine should last around a year and a half. The country can’t survive in a standstill for a year,” the minister argued.

Even though he did not say what should change regarding lockdown, the minister noted that Brazil requires specific plans for each location. “Brazil is gigantic and heterogeneous. We must have special guidelines for different regions across the country. What’s the structure of beds? What’s the occupancy rate? How are human resources going?” he asked.

Information

Another front under the new administration will include data collection and analysis. Teich mentioned that, since COVID-19 is a novel phenomenon, more information should be gathered before answers can be found.

He said a data bank will be created with the participation of several ministries. “We’ll seek a larger integration with other government groups to organize the data. We’ll have data linked to hospitals and states—everything brought together in a program linked to a number of ministries,” he reported.

As the “third front” of his management, Nelson Teich mentioned infrastructure. He announced the participation of General Eduardo Panzuello as executive secretary, and said his experience will play a key role to speed up measures concerning supplies, drugs, and equipment.

Other demands

The new minister also talked about care with other diseases. He mentioned that people with chronic diseases are having difficulties gaining access to assistance.

“Those suffering from other diseases, like cancer, are unable to reach [health care units]. Some people are having heart attacks and dying at home because they can’ t get to the hospital in time. We must make sure we don’t leave other people behind, even though the focus is on COVID-19,” he remarked.

Due to what he termed “repressed demand,” and “non-COVID-19 cases,” a second crisis may come about after the system becomes stable if these cases are not properly tackled.