90% of positive cases sent to quarantine hotels

Of the 1,087 positives cases reported by the health authorities up to midnight of July 5, some 900 have been referred to isolation in quarantine hotels, the deputy director of the Conde de São Januário Hospital Center (CHCSJ), Dr. Lei Wai Seng, said at the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Center press briefing yesterday.

Lei´s comments came in response to a media inquiry on the clinical situation of all the patients and the apparent lack of enforcement of contingency plans previously presented by the same authorities to face a potential outbreak of Covid-19.

The representative from the public hospital explained that the authorities have felt, so far, that there was no need to enforce such plans, since the large majority of the cases are of people without any symptoms (660) and, of the remaining 427, a very large group also presented with symptoms that did not require any medical care.

“Until this moment, and after activating the treatment community center (at the East Asian Games Dome), we saw that it contributed to the effective relief of the emergency services of [CHCSJ] hospital,” said Lei.

So, since our services are working smoothly, we decided not to enforce other measures [such as the makeshift hospital]. I can say that 80 to 90% of all the patients are forwarded to quarantine hotels. Over 900 are in quarantine in hotels and they only need basic services and medicines, which is enough for them. They require no particular medical care,” Lei added, noting that this Omicron strain is not likely to create severe problems in society unless those infected have chronic diseases.

“Those that have special needs are the people with chronic diseases and the hospitals will take care of them, because their situation can easily become serious. The Public Health Clinical Centre in Coloane is only taking care of severe patients,” Lei remarked.

He also announced that, yesterday, two cases of infected patients with chronic diseases  have been sent to the Public Health Center to evaluate their situation.

According to the doctor, both patients have kidney failure that requires constant hemodialysis and other treatments but, so far, “We are only providing them with a general service, nothing really special, we are not even medicating them with antiviral medicines. We will continue to monitor their health condition.”

Of those patients whose clinical presentation is serious, Lei said that there are four people hospitalized who require the use of ventilators, noting that in two of these cases, they were already using ventilators before being infected with Covid-19, and for some years prior due to their chronic illnesses.

Only one patient is considered to be at high risk, “but his condition is also improving,” the same official noted.

Lei noted that there are now also three women who pregnant. One of them is at the beginning of the gestational period and two are mid-gestation. None have presented any problems. Two of them are being moved from the hospital into quarantine hotels for not presenting with symptoms that require medical care.

The third is in the 38th week of gestation and has been placed under medical observation in quarantine as a precautionary measure because her husband tested positive and she has been listed as a close contact only.

As for children, seven of them are aged under one year old and 18 are aged between two and three years old.

According to Lei, all are under both medical and parental care and none present with any concerning symptoms for the time being.