Half of the 14 nursing homes in the municipality of Loulé, as well as a home support team, totaling 521 people, have already been tested with Covid-19, as part of the project being developed by Algarve Biomedical Center (ABC) and the Social Security Institute, revealed this Wednesday the mayor of Loulé, in a press conference to assess this first phase of the fight against the pandemic.
According to Vítor Aleixo, there is still a need to «test seven establishments and three home support teams», which represents about half a thousand analyzes to be carried out. «Half of the work that ABC is supposed to do is done», for example, the homes of the Santa Casa da Misericórdia in Loulé, Alte, Benafim, Querença and the second in Quarteira remain to be tested.
The mayor added that, in the municipality of Loulé, «60 people are officially confirmed with Covid-19, which represents 19% of the total for the entire Algarve region».
This number of infected, acknowledged the mayor, is mainly due to the situation of the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Boliqueime, where, after tests carried out by the ABC team on April 2, it was learned the very next day that they had been identified. 21 infected users, 5 inconclusive cases and 33 negative.
Vítor Aleixo said that, on Sunday and Monday, all users of the home were tested again.
Today, April 22, and while it is not known what the result of these last rounds of tests will be, of the 21 users who had tested positive at the beginning of the month, eight have already recovered. One of them was admitted to the hospital in Faro, but eventually also recovered from the disease. 12 others are recovering after their most recent test came back negative.
Of the 5 users who were inconclusive, 4 are negative and the other is recovering.
Of the remaining 33 negative, 11 turned out to be positive, one person died, 3 are positive and admitted to the hospital in Faro, another six are positive but "okay", one is already recovering and the remaining 21 remain negative.
The situation of this home, which has been the main "concern" and the only one where positive cases of Covid-19 have been detected so far in the entire county, is being monitored every day, "in conjunction with the Local Authority of Health and the Ombudsman of the Santa Casa da Misericórdia of Boliqueime».
Despite the death that occurred, that of writer Lídia Jorge's mother, last Sunday (and the death of another user, but which was not caused by Covid-19), Vítor Aleixo was hopeful about the evolution of the health of the users of that home.
After the new tests carried out on Sunday and Monday, «the results are very encouraging, with a large drop in the number of positive users being expected», explained the mayor of Loulé.
Thus, "hope is growing that very soon we will be able to publicly advance with a new situation in Boliqueime, with a total number of positive users much lower than what is currently known", concluded the mayor, at the press conference.
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