Dr. Jankovic: Cases rising again, it's irresponsible to pretend there won't be a jump in numbers

Photo: Tanjug/AP

The deputy director of the Clinical Center Nis, Radmilo Jankovic, says that there is no chance that the situation in Serbia will be different than in Western Europe in the coming period, where there are sudden jumps in the number of new Covid cases, and lockdowns. He also believes that the Omicron strain of coronavirus is much more present in circulation than we assume.

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"We are definitely going towards a new wave and it will last until the spring," warns Jankovic.

"My assumption is that we will have the same situation as last winter. We are on that ascending line again... In recent days, the numbers are starting to grow. It's completely irresponsible to pretend that it will not happen here, another jump in the number of new cases," Jankovic stressed, Blic writes.

He added that we epidemically followed only a few dozen people who came from Botswana and West Africa, and it turned out that half of them were positive.

"You can imagine what will happen when hundreds of people start coming from Germany, Switzerland, Austria...," warns Jankovic.

Pointing out that the number of new cases on a daily basis in Belgrade is very high, i.e., 40 percent of all infected people, he said that "it is not right for us to sit idly by, when Europe has hundreds of thousands of infected people."

"What do you think will happen when Omicron, and I don't really believe that it causes milder symptoms, infects chronically ill people, oncology patients, elderly people...," says Jankovic.

As for what he expects from today's meeting of the Crisis HQ, he said that from the beginning, we have behaved as if medical decisions cannot be easily made.

"Even if it was a matter of top medical doctrine that some measures should be introduced, that would not happen," he stressed and added, especially when people have already announced New Year's Eve parties, bought tickets, paid for it - it is not realistic to put an end to that.

People are in danger of emotional and psychological breakdown

On the other hand, he points out, "the situation is that people are really threatened by both emotional and psychological breakdown" after almost two years of living in a pandemic, with "so much confusion and so much contradictory information." He stressed that people should be given moderate but accurate information as soon as possible, because, he repeats, "we cannot avoid what is happening in Europe."

He adds that he is now more worried about some medical matters that he knows less about than before, such as the effectiveness of the vaccines. He also points out that in this wave, the biggest victims will be healthcare workers who are already exhausted.

The meeting of the Crisis HQ has been announced for today, at which the medical part will request more serious measures. There were 1,249 new cases of coronavirus in Serbia yesterday, and 27 people died.

The number of new cases of coronavirus in Serbia in the last three days increased by about 20 percent compared to the same period last week, according to official data from the Batut Institute of Public Health.

After several weeks of declining numbers, which began in the second half of October, on Saturday, December 25, more new cases (1,098) were registered for the first time than seven days prior (1,015).

(Telegraf.rs)