Teich says guidelines for ending isolation are ready: "the whole world is doing it"

247 - Health Minister Nelson Teich announced at a press conference this Thursday, April 30th, that the federal government has already prepared the guidelines that will define the easing of social isolation rules due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

"This has already been done; the question now is how to communicate it so that it doesn't become a source of discord," he stated, noting that it wouldn't be anything innovative in terms of method, but rather similar to what other countries are doing. 

According to him, the number of deaths per day, the decline of which should be one of the criteria adopted for easing isolation measures, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), in addition to population testing, does not influence the new rules.

“The additional number of deaths is very sad. But it's not because I have this change in the number of deaths that a policy will change. So there's no point in constantly counting how many more people die every day; the policy isn't based on that, it's based on the degree of growth and the heterogeneity that the country has,” he said.

"So at this moment we have a clear definition: social distancing remains the guideline and we will be evaluating each place, each region, each city, to see the contamination curve, what resources each city has to treat people, and that is what will define how this will proceed," he continued.

“No one is going to come here with something miraculous, something never seen before. The whole world is doing this. Several cities, which aren't even seeing a decline in the curve, are adopting flexibility measures,” he added, without mentioning any countries for comparison or the situation of the crisis in Brazil.

"What I think is important, very important, is this: I see this much more as a political discussion than a social one. If you keep polarizing to say whether it's good or bad, it won't lead anywhere," he stated.