During the week, Tuesday or Wednesday, the committee of experts will meet to suggest the opening of the schools, however the basic scenario, the will and the initial position, is for the schools to open on January 10, but with a possible update of the health Minister of Health Thanos Plevris stressed to SKAI.
“The protocol that was followed, had very positive results, from there and beyond we will see the course of the cases, but also the discussion that will take place in the experts, and possibly the protocol will be updated, mainly more tests. We are waiting for the placement of the experts. We believe that the schools have functioned very well in the past four months. At the end of the first fortnight, the measures will be re-evaluated as a whole, we will see the epidemiological situation of the country then “.
The cases alone do not necessarily mean something, said the minister, it is the combination of cases with the pressure on the health system.
“We believe that the pressure will be only on the simple beds, not on the ICU. In the ICU we have fullness over 90% in total, we have 1,300 ICUs sharing in COVID and non COVID incidents. “The system is under pressure,” he said.
“All Delta Intubated”
“At the moment we are on the rise of Omicron, the data so far, which we have from the other European countries that precede us, show that we have a much higher transmissibility, we understand it from the cases. Fortunately, in our case, as in other European countries, this has not been transferred to hospitalizations, ie proportionally they are much less. “In Athens we see that there are hospitalizations, but so far their characteristics are milder hospitalizations” he clarified.
“All the new intubations we tested by PCR, none of them are Omicrons. “All our intubated fellow citizens are with the Delta mutation,” underlined the Minister of Health. “An encouraging message, but on the other hand because we are talking about a very high contagion, there is pressure on the external emergencies of the hospitals, and accordingly there will be pressure on the NSS, because those who are currently being treated with the Delta mutation, Omicron found us a phase in which the NSS had NOT been decongested by the fourth wave and for this reason we were forced to take measures “.
He described Omicron as an “unprecedented phenomenon in terms of its transmissibility”; to grow and too. “The cycle of this process is about a month, as most countries have shown, and we hope that this scenario will come out. We have had the spread of Omicron since about Christmas. On December 21-22, Omicron was at 3% (of cases), and now, in less than 10 days, is over 70%. Frightening speed »
It is important, he added, that the cases are not transferred to hospitals and it is important that they remain at a young age until 30 – 40 at the moment the vast majority of cases are important to protect those over 60.
Monoclonal – pills
As Mr. Plevris pointed out, “we have taken the 2,000 monoclonal Regenerons, which are given and mainly concern Delta, we wait during the week, 10 days, 5,000 pills from MERCK and with the PFIZER pill we are already in contact to have them get the license, the license (EMA) is expected from the end of January, until the middle of February, we try to be one of the first countries that in early March will is the PFIZER pill that seems to have good results “. “But the vaccine
“It’s what saves us,” he said.
Vaccination: Given the extension of indirect obligation
“The obligation had an effect, out of the 580,000 over 60 who had not taken the first installment, almost 200,000 have made an appointment, have taken the first installment. We are considering two scenarios: the first is an almost taken decision, the indirect obligation that exists regarding the validity of the certificate, logically we will extend it to the entire population “, underlined the Minister of Health Thanos Plevris. “In order to be considered vaccinated, you must have taken the booster dose after seven months,” he explained.
In this context, Thanos Plevris, left a “window” for the extension of obligation to the population groups that burden the system, however, clarifying that this scenario is not considered at this stage.
“The second part that has to do with the obligation, which at the moment we have not decided, we are examining, it has to do with the population groups that burden the system, we do not operate based on categories (with the exception of the health ones) but based on age criteria “. “We have not made a decision nor are we close to making a decision,” he clarified.
Regarding the so-called “Flurona mutation” in Israel, the Minister of Health clarified that is not exactly a mutation, “It is a simultaneous disease from coronavirus and influenza and this mixture causes more burden, we do not have such a case”.
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