Amado Alejandro Baez, executive director for the Presidential Committee on Covid Response, says the government seeks to shift from reacting to the health crisis to being proactive. He acknowledged that the government had just reacted to the exploding of the Covid-19 virus in San Francisco de Macoris. In other provinces, the government wants to be a step ahead and now has the technology to prioritize hot spots and map the next ones to slow the spread of the disease further.
Dr. Báez, a world reputed emergency specialist now assisting the Dominican Republic, says the country is in a position to start using this technology to make better decisions. The government recently installed a Command, Control, Computer, Cybersecurity and Intelligence Center (C5i) at the Ministry of Defense and this will be used to track the development of the virus.
“There is a plan for the entire country,” said Báez who said he joined the effort two weeks ago. “We want to take steps for proactivity, create synergies and collaboration,” he said during the interview with “Esta Noche con Mariasela”. Dr. Báez highlighted the need to get public and private sectors working together to generate trust. “We have to have a vertical perspective, but from bottom up,” he said.
One of the first actions taken was the meeting on Saturday, 18 April, in Santiago to come up with a provincial plan that integrates all the players. Santiago is a major medical hub for the Cibao region.
Dr. Baez says new technology enables the government to anticipate a situation before it explodes. “It is a comprehensive platform with forecast capacity,” he explained. “We want to be ahead of the problems,” he stressed.
He said there is already much underway in this direction. He mentioned collective actions in La Vega, Santiago with Lina García, collective groups in Puerto Plata and San Francisco de Macorís, that is now under leadership of businessman Hector Rizek.
He said the mission of the new committee is to avoid redundancies by aligning the people to achieve concerted strategic objectives. He says the government is instating local councils to create synergistic answers to the issues.
He also said that there are many lessons already learned. “We want to share what was learned in San Francisco de Macoris,” he stated. He also mentioned the case of Santiago under Mayor Abel Martínez is one where lots of right actions were taken and these are being studied to replicate them in other communities.
Dr. Baez said that by May, the government will have enough information compiled to forecast where the country is at in combating the virus. The pace of testing has been upped considerably. He said on the table is the need to take more restrictive measures, checked by the effect of these measures on the economy, the population and civil rights. “Finding a balance is difficult,” he said.
He says companies will need to redirect their production to other areas where there is a demand. He said apparel companies may end up producing facial masks.
He says that the good news is that the Dominican Republic is ready to use technology and science and apply it. “We have the capacity to understand science and how to apply these advances in the country,” he highlighted. He said one of the challenges is for local researchers to carry out medical trials to determine which scientific procedures are applicable.
Follow the story in Spanish:
Esta Noche con Mariasela – part 1
Esta Noche con Mariasela – part 2
Esta Noche con Mariasela – part 3
20 April 2020