The Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (PA­HO) says re­in­forc­ing con­tact trac­ing and da­ta man­age­ment are key, as many coun­tries in the Amer­i­c­as re­open their economies and ac­tiv­i­ties.

As Covid-19 in­fec­tions dou­ble, PA­HO is urg­ing coun­tries to adopt smart lo­cal mea­sures to slow the dis­ease’s spread.

PA­HO Di­rec­tor, Dr Caris­sa F. Eti­enne, ob­serves that the num­ber of new COVID-19 in­fec­tions re­port­ed in the Amer­i­c­as has more than dou­bled, ris­ing from 5.3 mil­lion on Ju­ly 1st to more than 12 mil­lion cas­es to­day

“Pri­ma­ry health care should be at the cen­tre of the re­sponse: iden­ti­fy­ing cas­es, act­ing to con­tain trans­mis­sion and pro­vid­ing time­ly care in the com­mu­ni­ty,” Dr Eti­enne ad­vised, dur­ing a press con­fer­ence on Tues­day.

“Lo­cal health au­thor­i­ties have a cen­tral role to play in gen­er­at­ing and an­a­lyz­ing da­ta to ad­just pub­lic health mea­sures to the re­al­i­ty in each area,” she said.

Not­ing that in the past 6 weeks deaths in the re­gion have dou­bled, Dr Eti­enne said:

“We can’t stop all trans­mis­sion, but if coun­tries stay vig­i­lant and ex­pand test­ing and sur­veil­lance, they can bet­ter iden­ti­fy spikes in cas­es and act quick­ly to con­tain them be­fore they spread out of con­trol.”

The PA­HO Di­rec­tor notes that de­spite the rise in cas­es, coun­tries have grad­u­al­ly re­laxed re­stric­tions, re­sumed com­merce and some are gear­ing up to head back to school.

“In far too many places, there seems to be a dis­con­nect be­tween the poli­cies be­ing im­ple­ment­ed and what the epi­demi­o­log­i­cal curves tell us. This is not a good sign. Wish­ing the virus away will not work, it will on­ly lead to more cas­es, as we’ve seen over these past six weeks,” Dr Eti­enne said.

“We have good tools to­day: da­ta that show where the hot spots are, con­tact trac­ing pro­to­cols to slow on­ward trans­mis­sion and pub­lic health mea­sures that can re­duce the risk of ex­po­sure. We’ll have even bet­ter tools in the fu­ture: im­proved tests, more ef­fec­tive treat­ments and even vac­cines. Na­tion­al and lo­cal gov­ern­ments need to be strate­gic about how they use these tools—old and new—to achieve the de­sired im­pact,” she said.

In­ci­dence of COVID-19 in younger peo­ple

Da­ta from all over the Amer­i­c­as show that the ma­jor­i­ty of cas­es are re­port­ed in peo­ple be­tween 20 and 59 years of age, but al­most 70% of deaths are re­port­ed in peo­ple over 60.

“This in­di­cates that younger peo­ple are pri­mar­i­ly dri­ving the spread of the dis­ease in our re­gion. Many young peo­ple who con­tract the virus may not be­come ill or re­quire an ICU bed, but they can spread it to oth­ers who will. This is a stark re­minder that de­feat­ing COVID-19 is a shared re­spon­si­bil­i­ty—not on­ly among coun­tries and re­gions, but be­tween peo­ple, neigh­bours and com­mu­ni­ties,” Eti­enne added.

“If you don’t take the right steps to keep your­self safe, you’re putting oth­ers in dan­ger,” she warned.

Con­cerns and en­cour­ag­ing signs

Dr Eti­enne said she was con­cerned about new in­fec­tions in the Caribbean as coun­tries open their bor­ders.

“While Caribbean is­lands have avoid­ed ma­jor out­breaks thanks to strong po­lit­i­cal re­solve and a smart mix of pub­lic health mea­sures, now that non-es­sen­tial air trav­el is re­sum­ing across the re­gion, sev­er­al coun­tries are re­port­ing spikes in cas­es,” she ob­served.

PA­HO re­ports that two weeks ago, the Ba­hamas ob­served a 60 per­cent in­crease com­pared to the pre­vi­ous week, while Sint Maarten, Trinidad and To­ba­go and the US Vir­gin Is­lands all re­port­ed a 25 per­cent jump.

“This is not just dri­ven by tourism, but al­so by cit­i­zens re­turn­ing home af­ter the lock­down. We know that coun­tries that de­pend on tourism can’t re­main closed in­def­i­nite­ly, but as they re­open, they must use all the re­sources avail­able to re­duce risk for their peo­ple,” the PA­HO Di­rec­tor said.

Dr. Eti­enne said en­cour­ag­ing signs in the da­ta from some coun­tries show that coun­tries have the tools to re­duce the spread of COVID-19 and save lives.

“One of the most ef­fec­tive strate­gies we have is con­tact trac­ing, as shown in work to stop the chain of trans­mis­sion by us­ing it to track all new cas­es and lim­it the spread of the virus in Do­mini­ca, The Ba­hamas, Ar­genti­na, Guatemala and Suri­name,” she said.

“This bought them time to pre­pare their sys­tems for this mo­ment, and they’ve built the nec­es­sary ca­pac­i­ty to iden­ti­fy cas­es and trace peo­ple who may have been ex­posed,” she added.

Right strate­gies

Dr Eti­enne cit­ed oth­er ex­am­ples of how the right strate­gies can bend the curve of the pan­dem­ic.

“As re­cent­ly as June, in­fec­tions in Chile were ris­ing rapid­ly. So na­tion­al au­thor­i­ties looked at the da­ta and tai­lored their ap­proach: dras­ti­cal­ly ex­pand­ing test­ing, iso­lat­ing cas­es and de­ploy­ing stay-at-home or­ders in the hard­est hit ar­eas. It worked. For six weeks now, Chile has seen COVID-19 lose steam, and is re­port­ing few­er cas­es,” she said.

Cos­ta Ri­ca had low trans­mis­sion when they im­ple­ment­ed stay-at-home or­ders and used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to pre­pare, by ex­pand­ing test­ing and hos­pi­tal ca­pac­i­ty.

“Even though there are new cas­es now, their health ser­vices are cop­ing well. These ex­am­ples prove that if we em­ploy ev­i­dence-based ap­proach­es, we can even­tu­al­ly over­come this cri­sis, even in places where cas­es are ris­ing,” she said.

“This virus is go­ing to be with us for a while. With­out a vac­cine, it’s go­ing to be with us for years. This will not be a fight we win once—but one that will go sev­er­al rounds. That’s why we need to ap­ply lessons from places that have con­trolled the virus and let da­ta guide our ac­tions,” Dr Eti­enne added.