In her weekly press briefing, Dr. Carissa Etienne, director of the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), presented a picture of the COVID crisis in the Americas which really cries out for the implementation of the Schiller Institute’s plan for building a global healthcare system. After describing the spike in cases occurring in Central and South America, the Caribbean and North America, she pointed to the disturbing pattern of more young people becoming infected. For much of the pandemic, she stressed, it was elderly COVID patients who were filling the hospitals and ICU units. But now, “look around the intensive care units across our region today, you’ll see they’re filled not only with elderly patients, but also with younger people.”
She reported, for example, that in Chile, the hospitalization rate of people under the age of 39 jumped by 70% over the past few months. In Brazil, the highest increases in hospitalizations have been among people in their 40s. Mortality rates in Brazil have doubled among those younger than 39; quadrupled among those in their 40s, and tripled for those in their 50s between December 2020 and March 2021. Warning that the healthcare systems around the region are severely strained, Dr. Etienne stated that “the time is overdue to adjust our response. And countries must be prepared for what’s in store.”
While the region did an extraordinary job in building up hospital capacity in the past year, today, she said, hospitals are “dangerously full.” Young people who get proper care will likely survive COVID, she explained, but “hospitalizations can take weeks and countries must be prepared for a surge in demand” for more hospitals and ICUs if infections continue at their current rate. But, here’s the problem, she said. “We also can’t expand ICU capacity indefinitely. There are simply not enough health workers to hire and to train in time.” The rollout in vaccines is improving, she went on, but vaccines are not “a short-term solution; we can’t rely on vaccines to bring down infections when there’s not enough vaccines to go around.” What are the options? Insist on the public health measures, social distancing, masks, etc. that are known to work. Indeed, Dr. Etienne concluded, “they are one part of the comprehensive response that includes prevention through public health measures and improving readiness of health systems.” https://www.paho.org/en/documents/weekly-press-briefing-covid-19-directors-opening-remarks-may-5-2021
