Andalucia’s Covid Experts Meet To Discuss Possible Restrictions
Spain News
Published: 23 November 2021 16:22 CET
The Junta de Andalucia’s Minister of Health, Jesús Aguirre, who was in Cordoba yesterday (Monday, November 22), announced that the region's Covid-19 Committee of Experts will “meet in the coming days”.
The Minister said that the experts who advise on how to manage the pandemic will meet either later this week or early next week to discuss whether ‘some measures’ are needed given that there is currently a "clear upward trend in the cumulative incidence rate" of the virus in Andalucia.
Speaking to reporters, Aguirre (pictured) declared that he will call for "the technical reports regarding possible restrictions and the legal reports," which he will pass on to "the entire Junta cabinet and the Committee of Experts.” He said that between them all “we will decide what is the ideal date” for the experts to come together.
As the number of infections continues to grow, so do concerns for the healthcare system but Aguirre insisted that "We start from a premise that we have low pressure on the healthcare system, which reassures us but we see a clear upward trend in the cumulative incidence rate of Covid-19 in Andalucía, which for now, does not involve a major increase in healthcare pressure," although he did say that he does expect it to "increase little by little".
As to which measures will be taken, the Health minister warned that "We will have to take some measures and they will be assessed at the meeting of the Committee of Experts, which will take place either this week or early next week, but it will be in the next few days."
He acknowledged that it will be a "meeting for decision making" and that after taking into account both the technical and legal reports, "some measures will have to be taken.”
One of the measures that the Junta wanted to implement is the ‘Covid passport’, which is similar to that being used in France. According to Aguirre, the passport will be used to access certain health facilities, sports activities, plus other mass events.
The Health Minister pointed out that the Andalucian government had in fact already tried to implement the use of the passport but unfortunately the region’s top court, the Superior Court of Justice of Andalucía (TSJA) “had rejected it", because at the time access to the vaccination wasn’t available to the whole of the Spanish population.
He stressed, “but now if anyone isn’t vaccinated it is because they do not want to be."
He also pointed out that "If we did ask for it, which is possibly one of the requests we make to the TSJA, they should not reject it now, since access to vaccination is available to 100 per cent of the population, over 12 years of age, in Andalucía.”
According to the Ministerio de Sanidad, as of November 21, 2021, figures show that in the Andalusian region, 6,775,209 people have received the full dose of the Covid vaccine and 6,876,550 have received just one vaccine.
Figures also show that across the whole of Spain, 74,988,489 vaccines have been administered with 37,547,526 people having received both doses.
Source
https://twitter.com/sanidadgob
https://www.surinenglish.com/andalucia/andalucias-covid-experts-20211122140351-nt.html
Image Credit: Junta de Andalucia
