After a busy week at the Ministry of Health — involving the Ômicron variant, vaccine passport, New Year’s Eve party and hacker attack — Luana Araújo, infectious disease, told the CNN that government decisions are extremely slow.
The ministry backed down from the decision to impose a five-day quarantine on those arriving in the country due to the hacker attack on the government’s website in the early hours of Friday (10).
The justification, according to the executive secretary, Rodrigo Cruz, is that the ministry is structuring some actions that will be taken due to the unavailability, in particular, of the vaccine system.
The infectious disease specialist criticized the decision: “When the agent thinks of foreigners living in Brazil, they don’t need a passport because they have physical proof.”
Furthermore, she said that the indicated quarantine “is a collective psychotic break, it has no kind of agreement with reality.” “Actually, I think this justification [o ataque hacker como responsávelç pelo adiamento] it is implausible. The most plausible is to admit the ability to execute. We have little human, financial and other resources”, he said.
Luana also points to the lack of centralization of information. She explains that the Unified Health System is conditioned by three managers, government, state and municipalities and that “during the pandemic, there was a lack of coordination, left in the lap of municipalities – which did what they could with science to bring more comfort the population.”
The most harmed, according to the infectologist, is the citizen. “The person doesn’t know if he can leave the house, if he can work safely.”
Threat to the population
The arrival of the Ômicron variant puts the world on alert. Vaccination is still indicated to contain cases. A survey of the CNN Agency shows that 65% of the country’s population is fully immunized.
Despite this, the expert is skeptical. “The point is that, in fact, the population is not that immunized, back there we thought that 70% [das pessoas vacinadas] it would be enough, but it turns out that the virus keeps circulating.”
“We still have states with less than 40% of vaccine coverage, if I introduce a new variant, we are talking about 60% of the population [dessas regiões] vulnerable.”
Christmas Eve
Asked about New Year’s Eve parties — especially on Copacabana beach, she declared: “We cannot have, in fact, agglomerations, we are unable to do that”.
“There is no middle ground, having a stage or not having a stage will not limit people on the beach. We know that people go to the beach to gather. Managers made some smart decisions, trying to decentralize people, but we know it doesn’t work that way. But common sense should prevail. At home, people have to understand if everyone is vaccinated, if there are people who took the third dose, in a ventilated environment”, he commented.
hacker attack
“It was a short time to realize a vulnerability. But what we do know is that it’s not easy to keep these things safe – that doesn’t mean I’m justifying it. But I still think it’s not even the hacker attack [o problema em si], I think we could use artificial intelligence with much more practicality”, he says.
“What gives the impression is that there is no intention or political will for these things to actually work,” said Luana.
Reference: CNN Brasil
