Governance and national coordination |
Actions developed to promote national coordination of public policies to face the COVID-19 pandemic by: |
- Formulating an agreed national plan, defining the role of each level of government; |
- Defining a structure for governance and monitoring and evaluating this plan; |
- Achieving a balance between decentralization and centralization of strategies and actions; |
- Strengthening political-institutional capacities in different levels of government; |
- Increasing diplomacy and intergovernmental cooperation mechanisms. |
Communication with society |
Actions developed to provide transparency to decisions taken at the government level so that society can be informed and participate in the process through: |
- Regular official communications from government bodies on strategies to be implemented and in progress; |
- Publication and dissemination of daily updated epidemiological data; |
- Maintenance of a public panel on the occupation of hospital beds, including ICU beds; |
Controlling spread of the pandemic |
Policies and actions developed to reduce transmission of infection in territories, restricting mobility and social contact through: |
- Case isolation measures and contact quarantine; |
- Measures of physical distancing or lockdown, according to an analysis of the epidemiological situation by: |
- Maintaining the safety distance (1.5 to 2 meters), recommending the use of a mask and personal hygiene; |
- Canceling or postponing major collective events; |
- Suspending face-to-face activities in school and religious institutions; |
- Suspending (partially or totally) non-essential activities; |
- Controlling land and air borders, restricting the movement of people and goods. |
Strengthening the health and surveillance system |
Policies and actions developed to expand capacity of health systems to carry out health care and surveillance by: |
- Increasing care capacity at all levels of care, with particular attention to primary health care (PHC), hospital beds and ICU beds; |
- Increasing laboratory capacity to carry out diagnostic tests, strengthening network of public laboratories; |
- Facilitating adequate supplies and equipment, including personal protective equipment (PPE), medications and mechanical ventilators; |
- Organizing health services, defining flows and points of care appropriate to locoregional reality, emphasizing the role of PHC in telehealth service and home care, whenever possible; |
- Implementing a public regulation of access to essential goods (medicines, masks, and beds), with national price regulation; |
- Standardizing data recording systems on new cases, hospitalizations and deaths, with national coordination; |
- Articulating PHC and epidemiological surveillance to implement rapid detection measures for possible new outbreaks, including early identification (confirmed by RT-PCR, if possible) and contact tracing; |
- Increasing investment in sentinel, genomic and laboratory surveillance systems and the interoperability of these systems at national, state, and local levels. |
Strengthening social protection and economic support measures |
Policies and actions developed to guarantee social protection to the population, with particular attention to the most vulnerable; and favor the resumption of productive, commercial and financial activities through: |
- Direct income transfer policies; |
- Support for housing maintenance, such as social rent, temporary suspension of mortgage payments and containment of eviction actions; |
- Guaranteed access to essential goods such as water, electricity and gas; |
- Expansion of access to unemployment insurance, including self-employed and informal workers; |
- Fiscal and financial support for small and medium-sized companies; |
- Tax concessions to companies. |