Opening of schools also means better supervision, EKPA rector Athanasios Dimopoulos pointed out to SKAI
As he explained, during the period “before Christmas, one in four cases were in school children who were on self-tests. From 26 December onwards, in the age group up to 17 years, we have only 13% of cases, which means that no tests are performed. “We will miss the opportunity to have a surveillance.” “There is no absolute right or wrong solution to this issue, we see this in European countries and in the United States,” said Mr. Dimopoulos.
“I do not know in a week or two what more we will have, I think we will definitely have more cases.”
As he stressed, “definitely during the mutated Delta strain, which is different from Omicron, the measures for the operation of the schools with masks and tests worked. “We hope that something similar will happen, to a lesser extent, with the mutated strain Omicron.”
“We will not be able to prevent the increase of cases”
“It seems that in the coming days we will not be able to prevent the increase of cases, that is, we will see what we see in other European countries,” he noted.
As he explained, “we are dealing with a strain that will dominate, we hope the immunity from Omicron can cover the Delta, not to have a Delta outbreak when we see de-escalation from the mutated strain Omicron… Historically pandemics degenerate into endemic or disappear. This process will be accelerated due to vaccination. “We expect in the coming months that Omicron will prevail, either through vaccination or, unfortunately, through natural immunity, and the virus will not find ways to continue the wave.”
“It’s a big problem that we have 250,000 to 300,000 of our fellow citizens over 60 years old who have not been vaccinated, despite the obligation, there is resistance “, Mr. Dimopoulos also commented.
“Obviously when we talk about a milder disease, especially in Greece, we obviously mean the vaccinated. “But based on recent data in South Africa, where the age group is certainly younger, we have seen the disease is actually milder in unvaccinated people,” he said. “Accelerating full vaccination coverage is particularly important,” he said.
“The resulting data show that when self-tests and rapid tests are done correctly, they have significant reliability. “They never reach the reliability of PCR, but for a method of general population control it is the only solution we have,” the professor explained.
He called for the immediate acceleration of the recruitment and placement procedures of the trainees and the specialized doctors whose selection has been completed due to the illness of the hospital staff. “(The trainees – specialists) are several hundred in the hospitals of Greece” he noted.
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