Paraguay calls for Easter Week confinement to curb the pandemic

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In little more than a year of pandemic, Paraguay has accumulated over 200,000 infections and nearly 4,000 deaths, with a surge in cases in recent weeks that have resulted in a full occupation of its precarious ICU and general healthcare system.

“In general hospitalization we have 90% occupancy, but still high demand, so we continue to urge people be aware and responsible about the situation we are experiencing,” said Leticia Pintos, Ministry of Health’s director of Services at a press conference.

She explained that the reinforcement beds are occupied as soon as they are enabled and that more beds are expected to become available in a social security hospital and in tents that will soon be set up by the Army.

Pintos attended the press conference along with the directors of Health Surveillance, Guillermo Sequera, and of Promotion, Adriana Amarilla, to emphasize the need to reduce social interaction during the 9 days of quarantine.

“It is important for people to know that human resources are almost exhausted, we are reorganizing with (medical) residents and people trained to be able to work in the different services but all that has a limit,” she stressed.

Amarilla emphasized that based on what has been learned, the main goal of this short confinement “is to reduce human interaction” given the confirmation of community circulation of the Brazilian variant of the virus in the country.

For this reason, she emphasized that “this critical scenario can be reversed” and urged the public to make “the greatest of efforts” to comply with the measures because it is the “only solution at this time.”

This is due to the fact that vaccines are arriving in dribs and drabs, mostly as donations for health personnel, as a result of the delay in deliveries by Covax, the World Health Organization (WHO) platform, to which the government entrusted the largest batch.

“The restrictions will help us to measure, fifteen days later, the deceleration of the epidemic rhythm,” said Sequera, who considers that there will be a minimum incidence considering the mobility registered before the entry into force of the restriction.

“The Asunción (bus) terminal is full today because people are traveling, but it is probably ten or twenty times what it would have been” without the Easter Week restriction, he said.

Sequera reiterated that the second wave of the pandemic is centered in Asunción, Central (the capital’s neighboring and most populated department), and Misiones (south), with half of its districts in red on the portfolio’s risk map.

During the quarantine, which will be in force from March 27th to April 4th, citizens will have to remain at home and will only be able to make essential movements between 5 AM and 8 PM.

Essential stores and pharmacies will remain open, while non-essential shops and catering establishments will be able to operate 24 hours a day, but only with deliveries.

Source: Swissinfo