The preparation of hospitals and health centres for covid-19 is defined in a standard that establishes the model for approaching the person with suspected infection or with infection, during the screening, referral and treatment of cases.
The mitigation phase is the third and most severe response to the covid-19 disease and is activated when there is local transmission, in a closed environment, and / or community transmission.
The answer is focused on mitigating the effects of the disease and reducing its spread, namely by minimizing associated mortality.
In this phase, light patients stay at home, moderates go to health centres, the serious, but not critical, are referred to hospitals and critical cases are hospitalized.
Health centres and hospitals will have areas dedicated to the covid-19 disease.
In hospitals with paediatric services, "it may be appropriate to reorganize services" to "dedicate hospital units exclusively to the treatment of patients with covid-19 in paediatric age, after the response capacity of the identified reference hospitals for the treatment of covid-19 paediatric patients is exhausted."
According to the DGS standard for the mitigation phase, people with suspected infection are tested for covid-19, that is, those who present symptoms such as fever, persistent cough or aggravated chronic cough and difficulty breathing.
However, in case it is not possible to test everyone with suspected covid-19, DGS has defined a priority chain: first, it is patients with criteria for hospitalization; second, newborns and pregnant women; third, health professionals with symptoms.
This is followed by patients with comorbidities (such as asthmatics, heart failure, diabetics, chronic liver or kidney patients, people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and patients with cancer) or people with more fragile immunity; and people in a situation of greater vulnerability, such as living in nursing homes or in convalescent units.
Finally, people in close contact with these patients are tested.