“There may be asymptomatic cases of coronavirus,” warned the Ministry of Health

“It is not a vacation, you have to stay home. The State is taking measures, but what will determine success is social behavior, compliance with those recommendations” So closed Carla Vizotti -secretary of Access to Health- the press conference this morning in which a new report was given on the progress of the coronavirus in Argentina.

The national government confirmed today that so far there are 97 confirmed cases, but the official who supports Ginés González García warned that “there may be asymptomatic cases that do not consult; In this sense, the epidemiological registry has limitations”

The official explained that the virus has an incubation period and there are many people who enter the country and do not even know that they had contact with COVID-19. “We are repatriating the Argentines (stranded abroad), that is why conduct is important and respecting the measure of isolation,” said Vizotti, who noted that at this stage containment phase coexist to minimize virus entry and mitigation recommendations.

In the presentation of the report, it was detailed that of the 97 affected, 80 are related to travel, 15 are people related to people who have traveledThen there is a case of local transmission in a cluster and the last one is under epidemiological study. Total there were three deaths and 11 provinces reported that they have people affected by the disease that became a pandemic. At the moment, autochthonous cases are not recorded.

At the press conference, Vizotti indicated that “Argentina is at an early stage following the WHO recommendations and monitoring cases of severe acute respiratory infection that do not have a cause as an indicator of circulation of unidentified coronavirus, but so far “no cases have been identified in this context”.

In any case, the scenario changes day: at the same time that the Ministry of Health of the Nation released its morning report, the head of Government Horacio Rodríguez Larreta He was leading a conference in which he warned that in the next few days the local circulation of the virus will surely begin and a peak of infections for the month of May. To anticipate this possibility, the mayor of the city of Buenos Aires understood that it is necessary to give oxygen to the Health system and announced that began to hospitalize the first minor patients in hotels.

Until now, 9 provinces have already made the decision to minimize the entry and exit of people from their borders, but more intensive strategies will soon be applied in different jurisdictions. President Alberto Fernández is evaluating applying a mandatory quarantine throughout the country that would be announced in the next few hours. The decision would be made this afternoon, after a meeting that the head of state will hold with governors from all over Argentina in Quinta de Olivos.

In this context, the doctor Omar Sued, head of the Argentine Society of Infectious Diseases, who participated in the press conference that was held from the Ministry of Health, insisted with take care of old people that make up the risk group: “Avoid unnecessary visits. We cannot completely isolate them, but let’s be cautious, avoid visiting them if we have a fever, cough or if we have many contacts in our daily life.

“In the exponential phase, the virus multiplies and can increase the mortality rate of the largest: in those of 60 years it can be 4% and then it begins to double, because it rises to 8% in those of 70 and 16 % in those of 80 ”, finished the specialist.