Other regions such as the Basque Country or Navarre, as well as Andalusia and Valencia, have preferred to maintain the pass for at least a few more weeks. But Cantabria has already given up on it. The local authorities consider that its implementation has had motivating effects on the vaccination of young people, but believe that it has no impact in reducing the strong transmission of Omicron indoors.
It is difficult to navigate the maze of regulations in the face of the pandemic in Spain. The framework set at the national level is indeed limited to a few general principles, including the obligation to wear a mask, in particular, and each region is then free to adopt its own management. This has enabled Madrid in particular, or even the regions of Castile and Leon and Castile-La Mancha to opt to avoid the pass or time restrictions.
“Sentinel Doctors”
But today, for the Spanish government, the debate is elsewhere. The peak of contagions was reached ten days ago and the pressure on the hospital system is starting to decrease, with a rate of Covid patients down to 15%.
At a time when it seems that the virus will grant a truce, the Ministry of Health is preparing the ground for a global change of strategy in the face of the next upsurge of the pandemic with the establishment of a new contagion surveillance system, on the model of that which is applied against the flu.
“It’s about moving from a health crisis management model to an epidemic control model,” describes Salvador Tranche Iparraguirre, president of the Spanish Society of Family Doctors. “What’s the point of testing everyone and clogging up health centers, when the vast majority of people remain asymptomatic, it’s better to focus on those who really need it,” he insists.
The less aggressive variant, the high vaccination coverage and the treatments that will soon be on the market encourage the application of a new surveillance model, he explains. “It would be a question of working, as with the flu, from statistical evaluations, relying on a network of sentinel doctors who serve as benchmarks to assess the advances of the virus. »
This change of course is greeted with reluctance, considered premature by some epidemiologists who fear the emergence of new, more aggressive variants. But Madrid’s idea is precisely to anticipate and open the debate at European level, so that this wave is the last to have been managed according to the indicators put in place at the start of the pandemic.