The city of São Paulo started this Wednesday (5) double testing to identify cases of Covid-19 and Influenza in the city, according to Health Secretary Edson Aparecido, who spoke to CNN.
“The city started a double testing campaign. If (the patient) tests positive for Covid, we do a second test, PCR. And if it tests negative, we test for Influenza. With that, we hope to have a very precise panel on the predominance of variants in 15 days”, explains the secretary.
Aparecido said that the tests in the last seven days already give some indications. In the period, São Paulo registered a 30% increase in Covid-19 cases, and the Ômicron strain has a 52% prevalence in the city. “This test that we started today will allow us in 10 days to have a precise idea of which variant is prevalent in the city of São Paulo”, he said.
He says that the increase in cases should not have an impact, for the time being, on the number of hospitalizations, but emphasizes the increase in hospital pressure due to flu cases. “We do have hospitalization pressure for Influenza: 405 beds in Brasilândia and 129 beds in Guarapiranga (specialized hospitals) are occupied, something around 80%”, he says.
The time for care in public health units in the coming weeks may increase due to double testing, says the secretary, but he assesses the procedure as necessary. “We are going to test symptomatic people because they may eventually need treatment, follow-up and eventually hospitalization,” he said.
Today, the average daily service is 20 thousand people in UBS and another 20 thousand people in UPAs with flu-like illness.
Carnival
Aparecido says that the City of São Paulo will decide on the maintenance of carnival festivities in the city next Thursday (6), when the health surveillance will present all the studies that we have carried out over the last week.
Despite not commenting on the definition that should be announced on Thursday by the mayor, the secretary distinguished open and uncontrolled events, such as street carnivals, from celebrations in closed environments.
“We have the example of the stadiums, where a passport is required, with a test and a mask, which has been showing results. There are environments where there is the possibility of having controlled environments, and others that are not”, he said.
“Events with more than 500 people are already released across the country, as long as proof of vaccination is presented. This is a controlled sanitary environment, which differs from an environment with millions of people circulating without control”, he said.
Reference: CNN Brasil
