Professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the University of Valencia and outgoing president of the Spanish Society of Epidemiology (SEE).
The Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, today announced that face masks will no longer be compulsory indoors after Easter. The measure will come into force on 20 April. It will continue to be compulsory in public transport, health centres and residences, but the final details of the new scenario are not yet known.
In the covid-19 pandemic, there is no evidence to justify closing classrooms to interrupt transmission and protect the health of children. On the other hand, there is evidence of the harm caused to them by dropping out of school.
In recent days, several countries have modified the quarantine times for close contacts and the isolation of infected people, while others are already considering it. Spain has announced that it will reduce these periods to 7 days, both for people who have tested positive in a test and for close contacts who require quarantine (in the case of our country, unvaccinated people).
The discovery of the Omicron variant has led to the cancellation of flights to several African countries, while many countries are beginning to detect cases among travellers from countries such as South Africa, but also Nigeria and Egypt. Spain has just announced the first detected case of Omicron, which corresponds to a traveller who had visited South Africa. What measures should be taken to stop the spread of this variant? Is it even possible?
An analysis of 602 community contacts of 471 covid-19 index cases indicates that the secondary attack rate (SAR) for household contacts exposed to the delta variant is 25% in fully vaccinated individuals, compared to 38% in unvaccinated individuals.