The former Minister of Health, Jaime Mañalich, criticized the sanitary measures implemented at the Airport due to Covid-19, in particular against the Delta variant.
In a conversation with Radio Futuro, Mañalich said that the first effort in the management of the pandemic is to prevent the Delta “from reaching the lowest possible speed.” “7% of the tests that have been done at the border are positive for the Delta variant. Borders must be prioritised. Second, vaccinate anyone who has not been vaccinated so far with any vaccine and third start reinforcement program with Sinovac, Pfizer or AstraZeneca,” Mañalich said.
Along these lines, and continuing with the borders, Mañalich criticized the airport’s testing system. “The testing system at the airport is badly done. It’s a good idea to test everyone who arrives. But in an overcrowded room we have a group of people waiting for testing is building an outbreak at the airport. The bottom line is that the nasopharyngeal PCR technique is an obsolete mechanism, and it needs to be replaced with saliva samples, at least,” he said.
Regarding the above, he explained that one should then “pass a sterile jar, which the person spits out. Or rather do an antigen test that in half an hour can establish a result. But the fundamental issue is the speed of sampling, that’s the narrowest part of the funnel. People who are coming in must wait in a place of potential high risk.”
Regarding the Delta, Mañalich said that “the only defense we have, given the little effectiveness of the confinements, is to achieve an accelerated vaccination, especially of those who have been left behind and to advance in the vaccination of adolescents and hopefully approve soon the vaccination with Sinovac for children between 3 and 11 years old and thus have a larger population immunized.”
