Proceed with caution!
AS some countries contemplate softening containment measures in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Carissa F. Etienne, Director of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), says these steps must be carried out with extreme caution.
She was responding to a question posed during an information session on the rapidly evolving situation of COVID-19 in the region of the Americas, on how and at which point should countries begin to ease their restrictions. She stated that while implementing the measures required to stop COVID-19 can be very disruptive, failing to do so will risk prolonging the crisis.
“Interrupting recommended social distancing too early could also have the opposite effect and lead to a second wave of COVID-19 cases, extending the suffering and the socio-economic uncertainty.”
According to Dr. Etienne, “Any attempt to transition to more flexible measures should be taken with the extreme caution. This has been emphasised both in the CDC and WHO guidelines.”
Dr. Etienne stressed that such decisions should always be informed by the disease transmission patterns.
“By COVID testing contact tracing capacity, the availability of hospital beds and other objective criteria. So surveillance must be strengthened to ensure that there is adequate monitoring of this criteria. I think it is important that we must also draw lessons from countries that have transitioned and are now transitioning.”
The PAHO director emphasised that social distancing needs to be accompanied by comprehensive social support measures to ensure that the most vulnerable can comply without severe risks to their livelihoods.
“This will require adequate national and local logistical capacity to ensure the delivery of medicines, tests, food and other supplies for populations.
“As lockdowns in parts of the world ease, with declining numbers of new cases, we continue to urge countries to find, isolate, test and treat all cases of COVID-19 and trace every contact to ensure that this decline in trends can continue. Indeed, together and with determination, we can face this pandemic and we can begin to contain further spread in our region,” she said.
During the meeting, Dr. Ciro Ugarte, Director of Health Emergencies, PAHO, commended the “cohesive way” in which the Caribbean has been responding to the pandemic.
“All the previous preparation and the coordination among countries is paying off, not only in terms of the deciding together which are the approaches, but also in terms of strengthening their capacity and sharing their resources in a scope of solidarity.
“I think that is the main lesson that we have to learn – this pandemic represents an opportunity to show our solidarity with other countries. Of course the governments have to look inside their own countries, but this pandemic is beyond that. So this is something that we have to learn from the EC countries,” he said. (JH)