Given the lower use of public transport but with more contagions, the government of Buenos Aires and the city of Buenos Aires highlighted their differences regarding isolation

The Buenosairean government warned last night about a danger of collapse of the sanitary system in the suburbs in the event that the cases of COVID-19 are replicated in the first cordon of the AMBA and assured that it would not be convenient for the city of Buenos Aires to take unilateral measures after July 17, tending to relax the current phase of mandatory strict quarantine.

The Buenos Aires Vice Minister of Health, Nicolas Kreplak, expressed yesterday that “it is necessary to be very cautious and bear in mind that in the AMBA the occupation of intensive care beds is in the order of 56% and that this situation will worsen if unilateral measures are taken or levels of contagion are triggered of the virus that is in the City of Buenos Aires to the first and second cordon of the conurbano ”.

With data in hand, Kreplak explained to Infobae than “To project an opening of the quarantine in the AMBA would be to pose an irrational or fanatic situation that we do not share, since with the cases of COVID-19 that we see increasing daily, we could not be talking about a relaxation of isolation.”

Kreplak’s expressions were a kind of response to the Minister of Health of the City of Buenos Aires, Fernán Quirós, who was optimistic yesterday with the results that will be obtained once this return to Phase 1 of compulsory isolation ends and assured that “We are doing everything necessary so that after 18 the strict quarantine can change.”

With an average of infected that does not drop below 800 daily cases, Quirós maintains that “The numbers in the City are stable” and “If we can keep those numbers in the coming days, we will be in a position to advance.” Horacio Rodríguez Larreta’s official insists on “seeking a balance” between “concrete results and understanding social humor.” In this sense, he warned that in the face of the post pandemic “there will be a psychological outbreak.”

On the contrary, from the Buenosairean government they do not believe that today the conditions are present to relax the quarantine. The vice-minister of Buenos Aires Health supported this position with results in sight: In the third cordon of the conurbano there is an average of 169 infected per 100,000 inhabitants; in the second cord 245 cases of COVID-19 for every 100,000 people and in the first cord that is adjacent to the CABA there are 328 cases for every 100,000 inhabitants. But if the Riachuelo is crossed, in the City of Buenos Aires that number shoots up to 963 cases per 100,000 inhabitants according to data from the provincial Ministry of Health.

“If we look at these figures, we assess that 90% of the City’s therapy beds are occupied and that 57% of the beds in the AMBA are occupied, so we have no room for flexibility since the risk of the collapse of the health system it’s very high, ”said Kreplak.

Throughout the weekend, the Buenos Aires Ministry of Health team passed updated data on the pandemic to the governor. Axel Kicillof and from today they will deepen the operations of the Detect plan in the vulnerable openings of San Martín, Avellaneda, Escobar, San Miguel, Berazategui, Quilmes, Lanús, Hurlingham, Ituzango, La Matanza, La Plata and Moreno, among others.

“The contagion curve did not go down. The mobility of people was reduced by more than 30% with the new phase of strict quarantine and today we have the expectation that this will stop but it would be irrational or fanatical to propose that on July 17 we will again make isolation more flexible“Said the deputy minister of Buenos Aires Health.

So far, the province of Buenos Aires has recorded more than 350,000 visits per day to homes to detect the virus and control operations have already been carried out in 1,000 popular neighborhoods in the suburbs. Across the country, Argentina’s case fatality levels are in the order of 2% and the province of Buenos Aires is 1.86%.

However, the AMBA remains the central axis of controversy in the fight against the pandemic. For this reason, Kreplak argued bluntly: “if we do not unify a strategy in the future and unilaterally take measures, there is a real danger that the health system will collapse at least in the first cordon of the conurbano.”

Until now, the Buenosairean government observes a quite strict fulfillment in the vulnerable neighborhoods of the Phase I of quarantine although they perceive that there is a greater circulation of people in the Buenosairean streets.

According to data from the Ministry of Transportation of the Nation, in the last three business days (the first of the fall back to phase 1) The lowest circulation of passengers in public transport was registered since the first fortnight of April. The average number of users that mobilized in buses, trains and subways in the AMBA represented a 17% of the daily average in business days prior to quarantine. Since social, preventive and compulsory isolation rules, it has gone from an average of 1,008,132 passengers per day to 735,367 (-272,765), which represents the lowest number since mid-April when the movement of passengers was 704,727 .

To establish continuity in the COVID-19 alert system, the province of Buenos Aires will deepen infection identification programs, the call center, monitoring in the municipalities, and the scheme of telemedic groups divided by region.

At the moment, there are no completely isolated neighborhoods to carry out contagion controls as there were at some point in the popular Villa Azul or Cabezas neighborhoods in Ensenada. They do not believe that other operations of this nature will be needed in the immediate future, since more specific work is carried out in the isolation centers set up by each municipality.

For there are three issues that Kreplak remarked before Infobae: “Unilateral measures should not be taken in the CABA or in any other jurisdiction; The idea of ​​reopening the quarantine on July 17 is unthinkable today and the risks of the collapse of the health system are latent.