Jorge López Peña, new Minister of Health: “The use of a mask will still be mandatory”

Although the number of infections and deaths from COVID-19 is at its lowest these days, the new Minister of Health, Jorge López Peña, ruled out for the time being that the mandatory use of masks will be eliminated in public spaces throughout the country.

“According to the studies we have from the National Institute of Health and Epidemiology (INS), the mask is not going to be removed yet, we cannot do it,” he said at an activity at the Parque de las Leyendas.

INS ASKS TO CONTINUE WEARING A MASK

The new head of Health, which replaces the censored Hernán Condori, referred to the recommendation made by the INS that the use of the mask in Peru should remain mandatory in open and closed places due to the low rate of application of the third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and the presence of subvariants of the virus.

The head of the National Institute of Health (INS), Victor Suárez, told RPP on Monday that Peru is 49% vaccinated with third doses, but also with large gaps between regions.

“Coverage is not homogeneous nationally. We need to increase this in order to be able, with peace of mind, to start relaxing certain measures such as the use of masks in open spaces without crowding,” Suarez said.

In addition, he said that advancing the incidence of new variants of COVID-19, such as OMICRON BA.2, is another important element to consider before relaxing biosecurity measures. He indicated that BA.2 would be 30% more contagious than variant BA.1, which caused the third wave in January of this year.

“Initially we were doing around 250 samples a week. This meant that BA.2, in the beginning, were isolated cases with less than 1% of the samples. In the last week, it already corresponded to 5%. Every week or two, the number of cases can be doubled by BA.2 ″, he said.

SCHOOL CAPACITY

As for opening up to 100% capacity in schools, Suarez said that this depends on the progress of vaccination of children and monitoring the increase in cases in the school population. But he stressed that, after the start of classes, “there has been no increase in cases related to the opening of schools.”

MINSA AND MEDICAL COLLEGE MEET

On Monday, the authorities of the Ministry of Health (Minsa) and the Medical College of Peru (CMP) met to promote the National Health Council (CNS), through which they will be able to jointly make decisions and address the main health problems of the country.

During the meeting, the Minister of Health, Jorge López, and the dean of the CMP, Raúl Urquizo, coordinated different actions to strengthen COVID-19 vaccination and other diseases, as well as to address the improvement of the infrastructure, equipment and human resources of the different health facilities nationwide.

“This will allow us to evaluate the different problems and diseases that were neglected by the pandemic, since these two years he dedicated himself to confronting COVID-19,” said Jorge López and stressed that these meetings between the CMP and the Peruvian Medical Federation strengthen the work of Minsa, since it allows us to know the needs in a global way of the sector.

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