Uruguayan Health Minister says COVID-19 situation “under control”

Uruguayan Health Minister says COVID-19 situation “under control”

Uruguay’s Health Minister Daniel Salinas Friday said the COVID-19 situation in his country was “totally under control” and added that “what matters is not the number of cases but the impact on the health system and the acute-severe respiratory infections that may be occurring.”

Salinas also underlined during a press conference the importance of people getting vaccinated and launched an appeal to those who have not “completed their third or fourth dose scheme” to do so at the earliest.

Around 63% of Uruguay’s adults over 18 years of age have received the third dose and 45% of them the fourth dose.

“People who have not completed the scheme suggested by the Ministry, take the opportunity to do it now and not wait for the summer or new indications,” Salinas insisted.

According to the Health Ministry’s Weekly Report on COVID-19 regarding detections between Dec. 4 and 10, the number of cases increased by 73% compared to the previous week. The Uruguayan authorities explained that such an increase was due to a greater transmission capacity of the Omicron variant over that of the Delta strain, but added that no “significant change in the public health impact” was evident thus far.

“We have 1% of the beds occupied with or by covid, and that tells us about a circulation that, although it has increased in the last weeks, is totally under control,” Salinas underlined.

The minister also announced that the Ministry would soon be announcing when the fifth dose will become available for those who have already taken the previous four.

Health Undersecretary José Luis Satdjian also pointed out that the authorities were at this stage focused on increasing the number of vaccination centers and even reopening many of them that had been closed.