The Minister of Health, has called for the public to comply with quarantines and not to attend mass events so as to cut the rate of infections.

If the current rate of coronavirus infections continue, Murcia’s health system could be in a state of collapse in about two weeks’ time. This was said on Monday by the Minister of Health, Manuel Villegas, after a meeting of the Covid Monitoring Committee, chaired by the head of the regional Executive, Fernando López Miras.

The situation is very worrying, with a significant increase on cases in recent weeks. As such Villegas calls for public responsibility, although he acknowledges that this month “we have also had a considerable increase in PCR tests, which results in the detection of more active cases”.

Health professionals insist that it is essential that members of the population who have tested positive or who have been in contact with a confirmed case should remain in quarantine and not go to work. However the counsellor points out that “the risk may be worse than we think, since 40 percent of the cases are asymptomatic.”

“At this rate the health system will collapse as happened in the first wave, ” says the head of Murcia Health, who is critical of the public for situations such as the one experienced last weekend with a party at a barbecue in Lorca with more than a hundred people, situations that “are totally irresponsible, and that put families and all of Murcian society at risk.”

Villegas insists that in two weeks the hospital situation will be difficult and we will be in an emergency due to a resurgence of the pandemic, but “you cannot put a policeman with every one of us, so we must all be extra responsible.”