The pharmacies in Catalonia they will stop testing in schools from Monday. Thus, the pharmacies will not make more antigens to the close contacts of a positive and these will be reserved only for the special education schools and teachers. Until now, schoolchildren in whose class there was a positive had a free test per week. They could access the electronic prescription through La Meva Salut. The decision, announced this Monday by the Secretary of Public Health, carmen heads, It is due to the “maintained and very clear decrease in the incidence and positivity” of the virus in Catalonia. Catalan pharmacies have already carried out more than 440,000 antigen tests since the beginning of January.
According to calculations by the Ministry of Health, 86% of Catalans are already immunized against covid-19 thanks to the fact that they have the complete schedule of the vaccine or because they have passed the virus. In this sense, Cabezas has highlighted that the severity of the omicron variant is less than that of others, but it is not ruled out that this is the case because the population is “more vaccinated”.
As for the epidemiological indicators, they remain high, but with a downward trend. “All the indicators indicate that we are on a very good path. There is a very clear drop in those under 15 years of age,” said the Secretary of Public Health. The playback speed (Rt) It has been below 1 for several days (0.75 points, this Wednesday), which indicates that the pandemic is regressing.
healthcare pressure
Visits in primary care also drop, despite the fact that there is still a lot of pressure. Last Monday, the CAPs received 61,000 visits throughout Catalonia, but the previous Monday there had been 80,000 and the previous one, 100,000. In hospitals there are admitted 2,946 people with covid (64 less than yesterday) and 452 people in ICUs (one less).
Cabezas has defended the use of masks indoors, especially with this variant (ómicron), so transmissible, but he has once again reminded that Catalonia does not see it as effective outdoors.
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It has emphasized that the third dose protects omicron as much as two doses against the other variants. “People infected by omicron generate antibodies, but since the infection is less, the defenses they generate are also less. It makes no sense to infect ourselves to have immunity. We do not know the result of immunity, the least is the vaccine,” he explained. Julia Blanco, lrsiCaixa researcher at the Can Ruti Campus, present at the press conference.
Salut calls on the entire population to get the third dose. The unknown, he says, is the variant of omicron, the stealthy one A third dose is recommended five months after infection.