It is premature to talk about the end of the pandemic in the spring, said to KYPE, the member of the Advisory Scientific Committee, Professor of Microbiology / Molecular Virology of the Medical School of the University of Nicosia, Dr. Petros Karagiannis, noting that there may be an outbreak in community.
Asked if we are moving towards the end of the pandemic, the Professor said that many believe that due to the mildness of Omicron disease, we can enter the endemic phase of the coronavirus.
“I think it's too early for anyone to say for sure because we have forgotten a couple of things about the coronavirus,” he said.
“First of all, the fact that it mutates and so far has presented us with at least five variants, the last two of which, Delta and Omicron, have been bothering us a lot lately and the second is the possibility that something new will not emerge but simply “While we are currently seeing a downward trend in the Omicron wave, the Delta variant is still in the community and we may see a new surge.”
He noted that these are unbalanced factors that may play a role in the future. He pointed out that we must continue to be vigilant, to continue with some measures, which are those of personal safety until we are completely sure.
Endemic phase of the coronavirus
Asked what to expect in the endemic phase of the coronavirus, Dr. Karagiannis said that it depends on which strain will be the one that will be released at the moment. “If it is Omicron, yes we say it is less pathogenic but it is still dangerous to people who belong to vulnerable groups, to the elderly, to immunocompromised people,” he noted. “In the latter, even with three doses of vaccine, their antibody levels continue to be low, and there is a lot of talk right now about whether these people should take a fourth dose,” he said.
On the other hand, to have something endemic, he continued, means that the immunity in the community will be such as to allow circulation at certain times when this immunity will fall.
“Unfortunately with coronaviruses the immunity is not long lasting, it is not forever, in some people it falls. From our experience with this virus, which is only two years old and due to the vaccines, there are high rates of immunity in the community, but we do not know how this immunity will develop, that is, when, in periods when the immunity will fall, the coronavirus and create problems. “These are things that no one can predict at the moment,” he said.
Asked if the mask will continue to be necessary in our lives, he said that it is a question that we will be able to answer more safely in two or three months.
The administration of a fourth dose of vaccine was discussed
Dr. Karagiannis stated that the administration of a fourth dose of vaccine was discussed “in an effort to stop further infections in our nursing homes, especially since we have had several chains of cases lately and we still have them”.
“But looking at the data from Israel and how the virus behaves in our country, we see that our elders are getting the disease relatively mildly and so far I do not know if anyone needed treatment. So we have taken the position, to wait to see how things turn out and to make a decision accordingly. “At the moment we do not consider this necessary for the general population,” he added.
Reduction of cases and hospitalizations in the coming days
The Professor stated that we will have a reduction of cases and hospitalizations in the coming days. “This is what we hope will happen, even though in the last three or four days it has sent around 2,200 cases a day and does not say it will fall,” he said.
Asked to comment that we had a record number of deaths on Wednesday, he said that they were not deaths that happened in one day. “Yesterday's deaths were three. “It was just a reassessment of some of the deaths that occurred on January 1, based on death certificates.”
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