Exactly two years ago, President Luis Lacalle Pou announced at a press conference the detection of the first four cases of coronavirus in Uruguay. It was then that grade 5 infectologist Julio Medina and his teaching team set to work on how to spread the necessary information that citizens should have to deal with the virus.
Today, two years after that moment, the specialist visualizes a scenario in which Uruguay is “much better prepared” than then, with the majority of its population vaccinated. “Two years later we are much better prepared and with a vaccine or hybrid protection (vaccine + disease) that has allowed us to be safer and resume our social interaction in a good way,” she wrote on her Twitter account.
However, he also warned: “The virus continues to evolve and future scenarios are uncertain.”
According to Medina, the coronavirus still it is capable of damaging the country “directly or indirectly”, either through new mutations or behavior that affects foreign trade with other countries. “As an example of the latter, what if China evolves into an epidemic like Hong Kong is doing right now? What would happen to supply chains?” he asked.
The professor recalled that at the beginning of the epidemic he and his team had to learn to “mitigate” the damage of covid-19, “optimize assistance” and “assume advice at different levels”, in addition to addressing different communication tasks.
“In any case, we knew that the race would be long and that the damage that the virus was going to cause would be very significant,” he explained.
This was announced on March 13, 2020 when he wrote: “This will not be a 100-meter race, It will be a 42 kilometer marathon and we will all have to run it, without exception. This implies that we must all moderate our energies, we must take care of ourselves and take care of others.”
At a time when the country has 79% of its population vaccinated with the second dose and 58% with the third, Medina insists on remaining “vigilant” and maintaining the use of masks in closed places with poor ventilation.
“Staying vigilant is the most sensible thing we can do. Completing vaccination schedules, proper ventilation and wearing masks in poorly ventilated interiors remain our shields,” he said.
