Do more PCR daily, going from the current 11,000 to more than 15,000, and hire 650 professionals for Primary Care. These are the immediate measures that the Government of Madrid will adopt to try to go to phase 1 of the de-escalation on Monday, May 18. This was announced this morning by the Madrid vice president, Ignacio Aguado, in an interview on the Cope network. "We are going to do what is in our hands so that [the central government] has no justification to delay the phase jump," said the 'number two' of the government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso.

Aguado believes that "letting a week or two pass" before entering phase 1 "surely has dire consequences for thousands of people " who are "on the verge of closure" and have not received any income since March.

"One more week can mean closing your business, having to end your project and go from being a viable business that generates jobs to being one more person needing help or a subsidy from the Government of Spain," he said. Aguado in an interview in Cope, in which he remarked that it is important to "combine the greatest number of interests" when making important decisions such as requesting a phase change.

Along these lines, he pointed out that the coronavirus pandemic "not only" has carried away "thousands of lives" but also "thousands of companies". "It is also a drama , " added the vice president, who argued that the region is ready to go to phase 1 and start "the reopening of Madrid"; This position is not shared by the Ministry of Health, which on Friday declined the request of the Community and urged it to reinforce Primary Care for the follow-up of cases.

On Thursday, the director of Public Health of the Madrid Government also resigned after presenting a 28-page report in which she maintained that Madrid was not ready to go to Phase 1. The Minister of Health, Enrique Ruiz Escudero, also defended in the Council of Wednesday's government wait at least "one more week", although finally the Madrid Executive chose to make the phase pass request.

In this regard, Aguado has assured that "health criteria should always prevail", but that these should "be combined with other realities such as the economic one" and that, for this reason, the regional government's commitment was to ask for passage and to do so "with the greater guarantees "; such as the mandatory use of masks.

"The confinement only stops the collapse of the emergencies, but it does not kill the virus . On the Monday that we leave, be it, in two or in five ... it will continue there," stressed the vice president.

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  • Madrid
  • Madrid's community
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  • Ignacio Aguado

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