The director of the Center for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies, Fernando Simón, assessed this Wednesday the current situation of the transmission of the coronavirus in Spain, in a context “very favorable thanks to the vaccines”. “The pandemic may end, but the infection does not have to, since we do not know if it will remain as an underlying disease like the flu, if it will disappear or if it will have more periodic epidemic waves,” he clarified.
During his speech at a round table at the 1st International Summit on Pandemic Management, held in Valencia, the spokesman for the Spanish Government on issues related to prevention and action against the coronavirus admitted that despite the increase in the cumulative incidence recorded during the recent weeks, “the situation is very different”, since “we have essential tools such as vaccines”.
“We do not know what will happen in the long term, we cannot predict it. But it is likely that in the coming months we will not have a catastrophic situation”, said Simón, who has also pointed to the need to “maintain caution” and “make the appropriate decisions”.
On the other hand, the key for Simón lies in “being prepared for the next pandemic, even if we don’t know when exactly it will arrive”. In this regard, he has described mass vaccination against infection as transcendental. “Vaccines work very well. I don’t care if unvaccinated people tell me they don’t get it for their rights, but I can’t accept the argument that they don’t work”, he emphasized.
Regarding the preparation of new pandemic situations, the director of the Center for Coordination and Health Alerts has commented that “we are better prepared”, but that “the richer we are, the less tolerant we are of risk”. “We cannot tolerate the same impact for the next pandemic, although surely the impact will be less with each outbreak,” he said.
During his presentation, Simón shared a table with Nissaf Ben Alaya, general director of the Observatory of New and Emerging Diseases of the Tunisian Ministry of Health and with Konstantinos Gogosis, director of Operational Preparedness for Public Health Emergencies of the Greek Ministry of Health.
In it, he defended that in the face of a global problem “a global response must be given”. “What each country does is a piece of a puzzle, since it is the same size but with our technology we have made it smaller and closer,” she argued.
“We were not prepared for something of the magnitude that we have witnessed with Covid-19. The pandemic is not a volcano or an earthquake, it is something that lasts for long periods of time and has a great impact, because we are not dealing with a few people, but with the entire population with its limits when it comes to enduring restrictions”, he explained. Simon.
For this reason, he has called for the involvement of all sectors apart from health professionals, as well as legislation that allows acting “quickly” and “strongly” in the face of global pandemics. “We are facing a changing situation. For example, can we trust that the companies that manufacture masks will continue to produce them in a year when they are cheaper in China?” Simón wondered. “All of this requires money and research, not only at a health level, but also socially and anthropologically,” he added.
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