The strategy to prevent COVID-19 in Jalisco is working well.
Contrary to what was thought, the return to face-to-face classes has not generated growth in the number of people hospitalized in the state, said Governor Enrique Alfaro Ramírez this morning, at the end of the health table made up of the government, the University of Guadalajara, and hospitals.
"In hospitalized people, the decrease has also been sustained. We are at 939 against the 1,400 that we had four weeks ago, the rate of positives also fell at 20.5 against the 26.1 that we had at the beginning of the strategy of face-to-face classes."
He explained that although active cases of the last 15 days rose a little, this week a downward trend can be seen. Infections in the last week fell, as well as hospitalizations, and the rate of positivity.
"From having 12,328 cases in the previous week, we dropped to 10,111. In reality what we see in cases is we have a downward trend, not as fast as we would like, but in general it has remained down in the last 4 weeks," he detailed.
When monitoring the weekly balance of the return to classes, the governor reported that there was an increase in attendance: with 98.9% of the schools open, and with 86% of the students in Jalisco having opted for the face-to-face model. "In other words, the vast majority of Jalisco families have understood the importance of returning to face-to-face classes. They have had confidence in the model that we have developed together."
Regarding the incidence of active COVID-19 cases detected in basic education schools, it continues to a minimum with only 0.0048% of students, that is, 80 active cases; and 0.0833% of all workers, with 103 cases.
This week it is reported that in the ages of students from 3 to 14 years (basic education,) there are 623 active cases, of which only 80 were identified in schools. "Out of 623 active cases of children under 15 years of age, we had only 8 hospitalizations this week in our state. It is an impact even less than that of influenza in fact."
He noted that preventive containment measures have been taken in 4 schools out of 13,415 schools. In two schools the decision was made to close the school temporarily; while in a couple more only the classrooms where there were infections were closed. “We have been able to monitor the evolution of the pandemic in the age group that we had to pay attention to. The conclusion is that the strategy allows us to move forward, that no additional measures are needed. But we cannot lower our guard, nor relax the measures that we have established at this stage.”
The Governor of Jalisco recalled that vaccination advances and works, but vaccinations need to be redoubled in some age groups. The percentage vaccinated in people over 18 is 43%, in those over 30 it is 71%, but they are still low in pregnant women, at 56%.
"The vaccine does have a very important impact. In the first wave we reached levels of 73.1% of people hospitalized in the group of active cases, today we are at 10.3%. That is, beyond the number of infections, the most important thing is that today most people are not needing to go to the hospital."
For this reason, he announced that an evening shift will be opened in the three AMG vaccination macromodules, which will allow to vaccinate 14,000 more people, with which it is expected that 60,000 daily doses of vaccination will be reached.
"We call on everyone to go to the vaccination centers to start their process and be able to get the vaccine. We need a more solid commitment in that sense because as we progress with vaccination we will also be able to lower risk levels in the health emergency,” he concluded.