Sílvia Lutucuta, who was speaking to Public Television of Angola (TPA) last Thursday night, said that the Ómicron strain is at this time the greatest challenge in the fight against the pandemic in the country due to its rapid contagion.
"Its transmissibility and incidence are fast and the daily positivity rate that we are having is very high, ranging between 25 and 30 percent which is quite high and with an impact at all levels of our society", he noted.
Adherence to collective and individual protection measures and to vaccination "must be a fact", observed Sílvia Lutucuta, regretting, however, the "repeated non-compliance" with these biosafety measures at the level of citizens.
"We have a considerable number of people who continue to circulate without a mask, there has been a great deal of relaxation, we are very concerned about this situation and there will be a heavy hand with fines for people who are not complying with home isolation," she assured.
A new presidential decree on the situation of public calamity in Angola, in force since December 24, determines restrictive measures to contain the spread of covid-19, especially the Ómicron variant.
The on-site workforce in public and private institutions was reduced to 30 percent, but, according to the minister, many affected employees "are not staying at home", a situation that "comes to new contagion".
Asked about going back to school, starting on Monday, given the rapid spread of covid-19 across the country, Sílvia Lutucuta said that the situation is being evaluated at the level of the Multisectoral Commission for the Prevention and Combat of covid-19.
The Ómicron variant is also defrauding medical teams in several hospitals across the country, with doctors, nurses and other technicians testing positive for covid-19.
On the subject, the spokesperson of the Multisectoral Commission for Prevention and Combat to covid-19 in Angola said that the health technicians, whom she classified as warriors, "are very exposed, but remain moralized", fearing for a " system collapse".
"But at this point, if we do not continue to comply with the measures, we are also putting our professionals at risk and we could even collapse in the system, but it is not because of the pressure on assistance", she stressed to TPA.
Because, he pointed out, "now with the Ómicron variable we don't have as many hospitalizations, but we are having losses in terms of health professionals and we will continue to work on prevention to avoid hospital contagion, but the risk is that they are also in the communities".
Regarding the prices of landing tests, questioned by several citizens, the minister, without giving details, assured that a decree that "will have a fair price" will be published soon.
"It will be an antigen test and we have to accept that testing is a very big investment and even those that we do en masse at population level", she stressed.
At least 11.3 million people have already been vaccinated in Angola against covid-19, with more than 7 million with the first dose, more than 3.5 million with two doses and 304,000 with complete vaccination with a single dose.
