Oriol Mitjà, is a specialist in infectious diseases at Can Ruti Hospital. He and his team are developing a plan for the Catalan government, for the lifting of the lockdown. They believe that coronavirus cannot be eliminated in the short term. There will be "recurrent outbreaks over the next few months". They propose that massive rapid serological tests of capillary blood via a finger prick be done, to create an "immunity certificate" for people who have developed antibodies.
This was specified in a draft plan for a "coordinated lockdown exit", developed with Andorran bioinformatic Joel López who assesses his country’s government. The draft adopts the Andorran model and adapts it to Catalonia. The EFE agency had access to the report
What does the report say?
The aim of the document - written at the beginning of this month by Mitjà and Joel - is "to assess and propose tools that allow the implementation of necessary public healthcare measures to control the spread of coronavirus throughout the community.”
They propose "a phased lifting of the lockdown for people at risk", the assessment of the population's immunity, early detection of cases and contacts, and the adoption of “containment measures focused on hot zones.”
As for the "phased lifting of the lockdown for people at risk ", they explained that the "youngest and healthiest” will be the first to be able to go out. “We will check that this has no negative impacts on the healthcare system". They plan to "keep people at risk and those not yet infected at home for longer" and "wait to open schools and mass events.”
Thus, they divide the lifting of the lockdown in six phases: first opening non-essential businesses; second opening the hospitality industry; third allowing people under 70 to go out; followed by the reopening schools and educational centres. The last two measures would be allowing those over 70, the immunodeficient and those living with them to go out before finally lifting the restriction on events of over 50 people.
The immunity card
In order to evaluate the population’s immunity, they propose massive rapid serological tests of capillary blood via a finger prick, the result of which is obtained in 15 minutes. They also plan to offer an "immunity certificate", both on paper and electronic format, to those who already have antibodies due having overcome the infection.
"This phase could be carried out at multiple test sites, where there would be a team with a person qualified to obtain the sample and interpret the result," add the authors, suggesting that these sites be pharmacies, outpatient clinics, doctors' surgeries in businesses and universities.
Finally, they advise applying "systematic controls on groups at risk and those most likely to spread the virus" and performing rapid antigen or PCR tests on those who show symptoms.
They also support mobile apps as a means to monitor cases and contacts among people, "collecting mobility data through GPS" and contacts "through Bluetooth", so that phone signals show through a colour code (green, orange, red) "the risk a person and their contacts have of spreading the infection.”