The Secretary of State for Health asked today for "trust in the National Health Service (NHS)", noting that public health units are currently adapted for users "Covid and not Covid-19", with very different circuits.
«Chronic, oncological, cardiac or other patients who experience some type of decompensation, should go to their assistant doctor or to the Health 24 line. the use of surgical masks in all health institutions and, therefore, guarantees safety», stated António Lacerda Sales at the daily press conference to take stock of the pandemic in the country.
The government official noted that "despite the decrease in non-urgent activity, the NHS continues to respond to what needs to be answered", so that "people must have confidence in an NHS that knew how to take from its services what was not urgent and knew how to adapt its response [to the new coronavirus pandemic] by creating very different circuits».
Lacerda Sales also referred that the country is going through a "decisive phase" of combating the pandemic, namely due to the "exhaustion and fatigue" caused by social confinement.
"It's the time when we have to be more resilient," he highlighted.
At the same press conference, the government official revealed that Portugal has carried out, since March 1st, "more than 190 tests" to Covid-19 and that it has "a rate of almost 18 thousand tests per million inhabitants".
“The increase in testing was not reflected in a proportional increase in positive tests, which is, for sure, a good indicator”, said António Lacerda Sales.
The government official noted, finally, that, since April 1, the country is approaching «an average of 10 tests per day», having «today a rate of almost 18 thousand tests per million inhabitants, surpassing countries like Germany and Austria'.
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