The scientist who became famous because he appeared on television to explain how everything was going at all hours, explains a five years later How do you remember those days and how we are prepared today in a possible situation of this type.
The decisions that had to make five years ago, When the confinement was decreed to defend us from Covid, they assumed a colossal impact in the population, in the economy and in the well -being and health of all.
Just five years later, We talk to Fernando Simónthe scientist who appeared on television every day to explain how everything was going.
“Civil rights were limited and all that made us work very hard To get information that will support us in a proposal like that. But we do not make the decision. Proposing it was a responsibility that we had to assume, “recalls today the Spanish epidemiologist, director since 2012 of the Coordination Center for Health and Health Emergencies of the Ministry of Health.
“There was someone who told me: ‘You are crazy, that cannot be done’. But everyone understood that it had to be done. What was not known is whether it could be done. But almost everyone understood that it had to be done, “says Simon.
“We were in an already very dramatic situation, which was not yet what it was, but a situation in which, if we did not get ahead, The tragedy was going to be much greater than it was “he says.
One of the hardest criticisms received by those responsible for imposing Those measures that radically changed our lives were for Lock ourselves at home and another was about the masksthey told us that they were not needed, then they said yes.
“There were no masks. It is understood that people did not understand that. It was very difficult to manage uncertainties for most of the population. Scientists can work with uncertainties, it is our usual habitat, but it is that this of communicating uncertainties is very difficult. Not only there were no masks, but there was no evidence that they were really changing the course of the disease, “says Simon.
“Propose the mandatory use of an impossible measure to apply, because there were no masks, I would not have sense,” he clarifies. “You could not implement at the beginning because there were no masks available, not in Spain, but in the entire world. And also We were not at the beginning that they were really useful “he adds.
Are there masks? Wasn’t there? Were Epis missing? Were protection dishes? “There were flights that derived in full flight because someone bet more to the best bidder and paid better,” he recalls.
There was then talk that Spain had to have a strategic reserve. “Today that strategic reserve exists,” he clarifies. Another thing is enough: “We are prepared in part, but less than we would like it to be the total strategic reserve.”
The scientist believes that “today we are better in equipment, in personal protective teams, and also the autonomous communitieswith the centers and have some products “, but warns that only to” endure a while “and add that” there is still a job to do. “
