Recognizing the critical evolution of the pandemic, the North Section of the Portuguese Medical Association, along with the Porto City Hall, the Centro Hospitalar Universitário de São João (CHUSJ) and the Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Porto (CHUP), anticipated the need to organize and structure a complementary response in Porto. Several factors prompted this decision, namely (1) according to the fast transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the estimated capacity of hospitals in the city of Porto was thought to be insufficient to respond to the growing needs in terms of hospital admissions and Intensive Care Units; (2) the urge to isolate all positive patients for SARS-CoV-2, symptomatic and asymptomatic, regardless of the severity of disease; (3) the lack of conditions in a large number of patient’s homes to fulfill the isolation criteria; (4) the need to treat decompensated comorbidities in hospitalized symptomatic and asymptomatic patients.

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