Azores Situation Report Saturday 8th May 2021
From our colleague in the Azores
Vaccination Coordinator
The Azores will have a coordinator for the vaccination process in the region, said the regional secretary of Health, Clélio Meneses, explaining that the decision is due to the intensification of the process.
“An external person has already been identified, with international experience in terms of health logistics, who will be responsible for the logistics process in vaccination”, he said.
The Regional Government of the Azores has already created a Special Commission for Monitoring and Combating the Pandemic of Covid-19 and has now decided to have another person to coordinate the vaccination process in the region.
This decision “happens now, because now vaccines are arriving in the Azores very quickly”, explained the minister, who was speaking during the weekly press conference on the pandemic in the Azores, which took place on Friday in Ponta Delgada.
Clélio Meneses also said that “by the end of June, around 130 thousand doses of vaccines are expected to arrive in the Azores”.
This is “a much more demanding process, so it requires that we have adequate responses to this intensity of vaccination”.
He said, in addition to the São Miguel Island Health Unit, the “Hospital do Divino Espírito Santo and the military forces will also start vaccinating”.
The region will have, “from now on, a weekly age stratification of vaccination”, he said.
Clélio Meneses recognizes that there have been mishaps and exemplified with the undue vaccination of people who had priority pathologies, but who were not of the required age, at the Portas do Mar vaccination post, in Ponta Delgada.
Free Rapid Tests
The Azores will start making free rapid tests available for screening Covid-19 in pharmacies, saliva tests for mass testing students and random job screenings, announced the regional secretary of Health.
At a press conference in Ponta Delgada, Clélio Meneses, said that the region will now have “voluntary rapid tests in pharmacies”.
The minister noted a “protocol, which is already agreed, with the National Pharmacy Association, so that Azoreans who want it, can, within a period of 15 days, be tested voluntarily and free of charge”.
The costs are borne by the region, “either in the tests, or in the payment of the respective service”, he clarified.
It was also announced that the executive is in the “process of acquiring saliva tests to massively test students in schools” in the Azores.
It is also the Government’s intention to initiate a “random testing process in the workplace”.
With this initiative, it is intended to test “about 30% of the work environment, so that, through this screening, in companies, schools and voluntarily, it is possible to guarantee the control of the pandemic”.
Clélio Meneses also left an “appeal to the security forces to monitor compliance with these rules” and extended the request for collaboration to the entire population.
“More than feeling that we are paying for each other, we have to feel that we are protecting each other,” said the regional secretary.
Covid-19
The Regional Health Authority has said that in the last three days the number of new positive cases of Covid-19 resulting from 6,300 tests is 53. These tests were carried out in reference laboratories in the Region, in private laboratories with conventions, in the Regional Health Service, through rapid tests (mass screening), in the laboratory of Terceira University and by means of tests carried out in the scope of occupational medicine.
São Miguel registered most of the cases with 50. Santa Maria had 1 Terceira 1 and Flores had 1.
There have been some recoveries, 61 in total. Most of them on the island of São Miguel with 58. 1 on Santa Maria, Terceira and Flores had 1.
Eight patients are hospitalized, all at the Divino Espírito Santo Hospital in Ponta Delgada, none in intensive care.
As of today, the Region has 183 active positive cases, 173 in São Miguel, seven in Flores, two in Santa Maria and one in Terceira.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, 4,999 positive cases of covid-19 have been diagnosed in the Azores, and 4,663 people have recovered from the disease. 31 died, 79 left the archipelago and 43 presented proof of previous healing. The Azores have an active chain, in Flores and 201 chains have already been extinguished.
To date, 4,663 tests have been carried out in the archipelago to screen for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes covid-19 disease. The island of São Miguel is in a state of public calamity, with all municipalities at the level of High Risk. The remaining islands are in a situation of Alert, with their respective municipalities at a Very Low Risk level. As of midnight tomorrow, new measures to contain the pandemic will take effect in the archipelago. More information can be obtained online at: https://covid19.azores.gov.pt/ and on the Facebook page of the Regional Health Directorate: https://www.facebook.com/DirecaoSaudeAcores.
Between December 31st, 2020, and April 29th, 79,589 doses of vaccine against covid-19 have been administered in the Azores, corresponding to 56,419 people aged 15 years and over, with the first dose (27.85% coverage rate), and 23,170 people with both doses (11.44% coverage rate), within the scope of the Regional Vaccination Plan.