The Secretary of State for Health defended the use of masks under any circumstances, indoors or outdoors, having stated that, in addition to vaccination, the best protection for Covid-19 continues to lie in hygiene and social behavior.
"I don't see any reason not to wear a mask," he said, in closed spaces or outdoors, "in a context where viruses continue to circulate and we are in a pandemic situation," continued Diogo Serras Lopes in statements to Lusa, in Abrantes (Santarém), having stressed that it is a "personal position" and defending that "masks take nothing away from anyone and are good barriers against the spread of the virus".
The official, who was today in Abrantes and Torres Novas as part of the 20th anniversary of the Médio Tejo Hospital Center (CHMT) and the inauguration of new equipment for Magnetic Resonance and CT (Computerized Axial Tomography) in those two hospitals, said that «all measures may be on the table » at the meeting of experts on Friday at Infarmed, depending on the evolution of the pandemic situation, having defended the importance of hand hygiene, use of masks and social distance, before taking any measures.
"All the measures may be on the table, depending on the evolution of the pandemic", he also told Lusa Serras Lopes, when asked if the return of telework could be one of the options open and if the taking of new ones would be inevitable. measures, given the escalation of new cases of Covid-19.
"I think that when we have a RT clearly above 1 and with cases above a thousand [daily], an average of 1500, I think we need to pay attention to what is happening," he said, noting that there are "several types of measures, several that have already taken place, and [on Friday] we can start working on several aspects, but the most relevant measures will be the measures taken by the Council of Ministers [next week] and will be taken at that stage».
The Secretary of State for Health also said that, despite the increase in the number of cases in Portugal and Europe, with different realities to today, "there doesn't have to be fear, what has to exist is attention", having reminded that "the pandemic is not something new, it started in March 2020", which has already been crossed by "four pandemic waves", and that "today the majority of the population is vaccinated and this has protected us", which he highlighted as positive.
"In European countries, situations are more out of control, but we cannot let our guard down, and prudence, care and attention is something that must always be present in our actions before any other measure is understood", he stressed, having noted that the disease "is less serious and less serious than it once was because the population is vaccinated", but that this "does not mean that it has ended or that another variant that is more resistant to the vaccines does not appear".
The profile of patients "more seriously" affected by the new coronavirus is today "unvaccinated people or people with very compromised immune situations", he said, noting that "what we have today and what the data reveal is that vaccination protects very significantly'.
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