Medical part of HQ wants 5-day closure: More supervision in schools, weekend measures on Friday

The meeting of the Crisis HQ for the fight against coronavirus, which discussed the current epidemiological situation in the country, has just ended, and after the session, epidemiologist Predrag Kon addressed the public.

"The unified position is that something must be done over the weekend, the next meeting of the Crisis HQ is on Friday, when the final decision will be made about that," said Kon.

"Shortening the opening hours also means opening hours during the weekend, that's the only thing that can be discussed and that can refer to ski resorts. It has not been decided whether opening hours will be reduced from 8 pm to 6 pm during the week. This has been discussed, but it is considered that it's much more important to carry out control than to shorten opening hours."

As he said that, despite a ban on gatherings, the fact is that they are still happening.

"It is obvious that life cannot be framed, even though the virus is in circulation. However, the specific events that we have been following in recent days, it is inappropriate to talk about bans in those situations, but I am very worried about those events and it's possible that the situation will get worse in the next 10 days. We will monitor it. As for the medical part of the Crisis HQ, it is in favor of shutting everything down for 5 days, for eveything to be closed, but that would be impossible to implement and it's not right for me to talk about my thinking. There was no discussion about it, even though I said it."

According to Kon, this is now an unfavorable, occasionally emergency situation, and it will be reduced down to uncertain.

"I always talk more than I should. Schools were also discussed today, which is why I said that supervision in schools is being tightened. Each school has the opportunity to switch to online classes, if there are two cases of infection. There is not enough data to centrally move to online classes, although that was one of the suggestions."

"We must intensify vaccination if we intend to get rid of this," Kon stressed.

"In some situations, there have been increased allergic reactions in the history of the patient who is being vaccinated, so special caution is required. That is not a real contraindication, but just a precaution. That was also discussed today, and we will solve it. We are trying to prevent the November scenario and to participate in it. The measures are not the ones that will prevent it," said Kon.

He added that it is not possible to defeat the pandemic without immunization, and that it is time for those who had any dilemma to get vaccinated.

"Collective immunity always stops a pandemic and an epidemic. That will happen this time as well. It depends on the speed at which we carry out immunization when it will happen. If we wait for this to happen naturally, it will take time. What everyone needs to know is that without immunization, the pandemic will not be defeated. It's time for those who are in two minds to decide to get vaccinated, because that is the most important thing at that moment," he underlined.

Asked about people who became ill after receiving the vaccine, Kon stressed that the virus is in mass circulation and that there may be asymptomatic cases, i.e. that someone comes to get vaccinated without feeling any problems, but that they appear later.

He adds that it can also happen that someone becomes infected after the first dose, before they develop protection. But, he says, the impression is that such cases are mild and that there are no severe forms of the disease.

The number of new cases, which has reached almost 3,000 a day these days, does not inspire optimism that the measures might be eased, instead everything says that the existing measures will remain in force, maybe even be tightened.

Those in the know say that the best picture of the epidemiological situation in the country can be seen on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, because the results from Monday are a reflection of the testing done during the weekend, when fewer people get tested.

The number of people in hospitals is higher, as well as the number of patients on ventilators, while the number of first examinations is also growing.

Epidemiologist and member of the medical portion of the Crisis HQ, Branislav Tiodorovic, told Tanjug that there will be no relaxing of measures, and that two scenarios are possible - one is for the existing measures to remain in force, and the other is to tighten them in some cities like Arilje, Vranje, Kraljevo, and even Belgrade.

"This week, we expect an increase in the number of infected people, because the incubation period since they returned from their winter vacation has passed," warns Tiodorovic.

Asked whether abolishing of quarantine and the obligatory PCR testing for citizens returning from abroad, who have been vaccinated with both doses of the vaccines has been discussed, Tiodorovic said that it was too early to talk about it because collective immunity has not been achieved yet.

He said that Britain leads in Europe in the number of vaccinations, but that they still have not scrapped that measure, because vaccinated citizens can transmit the virus.

(Telegraf.rs)