The discussions that the pandemic is coming to an end, reassure the people and do not protect them, said to KYPE, the member of the Scientific Advisory Committee (SEE), Professor of Microbiology/Molecular Virology of the Medical School of the University of Nicosia Dr. Petros Karagiannis that is between us and we need to take the necessary protective measures.
“The point is, we can not predict the end of the pandemic, and the debate is over. The virus is still with us, we must be careful not to give the virus the opportunity to show us a new variant, which is problematic. “We must definitely drop the number of cases because only in this way, keeping the virus stuck will not give it a chance to bother us further,” he said.
obvious reasons. “The immunity of most of us will have dropped then and maybe then we will think about a 4th dose in the general population”, noted Dr. Karagiannis.
Asked about the increase in cases in recent days, he said that at the moment he does not consider the number of cases to be particularly worrying. “Of course it will be clear in the coming days if there will be an increase in hospitalizations.”
continue to have an upward trend and pass the previous levels, which I do not think “.
Asked what caused the outbreak, he said that because Omicron was less pathogenic, some people thought we were done with the pandemic. “This is not the case, we always warn that some people and Omicron can cause problems and we see that,” he said. “Also, the fact that the self-protection measures are not observed reverently, as before. “Many started not wearing masks outdoors and this is also done indoors,” he added.
Asked to comment on how much the hospitalizations will increase, Dr. Karagiannis said that we should see from the tracking exactly where the cases were detected last week, which are distributed according to age group.
“I expect the schools to keep the lead because so far they accounted for 30% of the cases, despite the fact that they were improving week by week,” he said. He also continued, “whether most of the other cases are age groups that socially due to Swan Thursday and Lent have moved to various places where there was synchronicity and got stuck.” “If this is the case, then the health system will not be under so much pressure because we do not expect that these people, even if they have been vaccinated, will need treatment,” he said.
of the 4th dose of vaccine, the Professor stated that the issue was discussed in the TEU in the past and that now the decision is up to the Vaccination Committee.
He noted that the data from Israel that proceeded to the 4th dose did not increase the levels further of antibodies.
“But we've been seeing the elderly lose weight lately, which may tell us that in this age group who were first vaccinated with the 3rd dose, immunity has dropped and they may need a 4th dose. The others who will need a 4th dose are those who have immune suppression, and who do not respond to vaccines. Therefore, these people need further protection “, he stated.
KYPE
