“An upcoming big epidemic or pandemic – which we will be sure – will be much more complex, much faster, much noisier and with much more social fractures,” warns former Director -General of Health.
With experience in public health emergencies since 1997, Graça Freitas, former health director-general spoke, in an interview with Lusa, about the challenges of a “next big epidemic or pandemic” in a more complex world, with much more sources of true but false information.
Graça Freitas, predicts that the next pandemic is “much more complex”, fast, noisy and with a significant increase in “social fractures” in issues such as confinement and vaccination.
Five years after the first cases of in Portugal, on March 2, 2020the Public Health Specialist believes that one learned a lot during this period and that the health system and Authorities are better prepared to face a new pandemic, but warned that “the next one will be on another level.”
“I don’t think it will be perfect [o combate]. It is impossible, because the world is much more complex and there are much more sources of true and not true information, “he said, recalling that when he started working on epidemics and pandemics, such as flu to flu,” the world was much less complex. “
There were sources of scientific information, Experts advised traditional politicians and social communication bodies.
“It was a world with less connections, interactions, less fast and safer,” while in the current scenario, “things are increasingly faster and more complex,” he said.
Therefore, he warned: “An next big epidemic or pandemic – which we will be sure – will be much more complex, much faster, much more noisier and with much more social fractures.”
According to the expert, There will be “more social frictions and divergent opinions between movements of society”, in relation to confinements, vaccines, medicines.
“Unless a next pandemic is so severe, so serious, so serious that we join us all again,” he said, considering that the population’s adhesion to the authorities’ guidelines in the Covid-19 pandemic “was absolutely exemplary,” which should no longer happen such an orderly in a next pandemic.
Example “of civism and social participation “
“I don’t know if we are going to have a confinement as orderly as we had in Portugal and in the vast majority of countries in the world”Said Grace Freitas, one of the faces of the fight against Covid-19 in Portugal.
Graça Freitas argued that The population’s adhesion to the authorities’ guidelines was “an absolutely unique thing of civility and social participation”also praising the role of those who worked to ensure that the essential goods, such as water, light, gas, food, were not lacking at home.
Despite the pandemic, which In Portugal alone, it killed about 29,000 people, “life worked” and the population has to “be proud of it”.
He stressed that the country had the ability to organize within a few days and each has its own role: “Some were in restraint at home, others to produce food, others to make press conferences, but each person fulfilled a certain role and fulfilled well.”
“It was something I still consider extraordinary today during the pandemic”he declared.
Despite several challenges, giving up “was never an option”
Of your experience, Graça Freitas recalls that She hardly believed when she arrived at the porch of her house and saw no one on the streets.
“I say many times: it was in another life, it was in another incarnation, because it was indeed an intense event for most people. Unlike what they were used to in their routine and somewhat unnatural,” he said.
About if he ever thought he would be to history as one of the faces of fighting pandemic, he said no: “And even if I thought I could have an epidemic (…), never, but I never designed for myself that it could be identified as a face of the pandemic.”
During the pandemic, Graça Freitas He faced various challenges, such as threats, criticism, a breast cancer, but giving up “never an option.”
He said that sometimes minutes before falling asleep he thought: “I can’t take this anymore, tomorrow I go out (..) I’m so tired, this is so difficult.” However, “it was an instant discouragement, the next day it was no longer there.”
