They resume the strategy of the mandatory use of face masks

At the national level, we are seeing positivity rates very close to 40%, which are very similar to the peak of the second wave of infections (at the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021) and the WHO (World Health Organization) recommends that countries maintain positivity rates of less than 5% and when it exceeds 10% it is already a matter of care ”.

Jorge Baruch, head of the UNAM travel clinic.

The sixth wave of Covid-19 in Mexico has forced the population to use face masks again in Nuevo León, Tamaulipas and Puebla; in the State of Mexico and San Luis Potosí its use is only recommended.

“I think that now, three years, we don’t have to wait for them to force us to do anything, right? I mean, we should have learned by now. If there are still people waiting for the government to force them, I don’t know; they will never learn. It is something that we should have already acquired in our medical culture”, responds the infectologist Alejandro Macías to a specific question about said obligation in force again in some states of the country.

For the epidemiologist Jorge Baruch, head of the Traveler’s Clinic of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico City needs to join the efforts to make a more energetic call to the population to strictly use face masks in transport public, shopping malls and closed or poorly ventilated spaces.

He said he hoped “this week the perception of risk will increase” through messages as part of communication strategies.

And he warns: “We are already seeing positivity rates very close to 40% at the national level, which are very similar to the peak of the second wave of infections (at the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021) and the WHO (World Health Organization) ) recommends that countries maintain positivity rates of less than 5% and when it exceeds 10% it is already a concern (…) We are four times above what is recommended as a state of affectation to health”.

The measure that has had the most impact in all the waves of Covid-19 among Mexicans, he says, is the use of face masks.

The decrease in mobility is also a measure that has a significant impact on the drop in infections in the short term, he explains, and another that is unlikely to be strictly adopted globally and in Mexico is to avoid meetings between people who They do not live in the same habitual residence.

Vaccination schemes

Both health specialists agree that completing anti-Covid vaccination schemes in the population over 60 years of age and in children is key to reducing the risk of serious illness and death.

“Ideally, people who are at high risk of complications should have at least one booster vaccination in the last six months. I’m talking about people over 60 years of age and chronically ill people”, Macías points out.

Baruch considers “extremely important, above all, to accelerate vaccination in children under nine years of age because this provides protection to reduce the risk of complications and even deaths from Covid-19.

“Mexico currently has a fully vaccinated population of around 65%, which means that around three out of 10 Mexicans are not fully vaccinated; a significant figure and that speaks of the need to accelerate efforts to summon the population, especially pediatrics, to complete their schemes”.

The population at greatest risk, he details, is the one that is not vaccinated and is concentrated in children.

“Those who are already vaccinated maintain some protection against complications or serious forms of Covid that could lead to death or hospitalization due to severe pneumonia.”

Hence, it recommends “reinforcing the vaccination message about reinforcements in people over 50 years of age and the importance of continuing to vaccinate children.”

Friday hello

Regarding the sixth wave, Macías specified that “it is not a surprise” since “it had already been anticipated that as the variants changed, a peak would almost certainly enter with the entry of the cold.”

What has made things a little more complicated, he adds, is that he is now cocirculating more intensely than in the past with influenza and with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in children, and that is what has made things a bit more difficult. little more difficult.

Again

Since last the 12th, the government of Nuevo León once again decreed the mandatory use of face masks in closed spaces to prevent a critical situation in the spread of Covid-19, influenza and other respiratory diseases.

Last Friday Tamaulipas joined to force the population to once again adopt preventive measures (use of face masks, hand washing, timely isolation of suspected cases) in hospitals, educational centers, social assistance centers, nurseries, medical offices and closed spaces .

Since yesterday, December 19, in Puebla it is also mandatory to use face masks both in closed and open spaces where there are crowds.

Also from December 12, the Secretary of Health of the State of Mexico asked the residents to avoid social gatherings this winter season if possible and recommended maintaining a healthy distance again, not sharing personal utensils and considering the use of face masks in spaces closed and with little ventilation.

rolando.ramos@eleconomista.mx