“The school year will start with a good epidemiological picture” said Professor of Pulmonology Theodoros Vasilakopoulos.
A few days left for the start of the new school year, which begins – like the two previous ones – with the “whisper” of the coronavirus and with the hope that this winter will be milder in terms of the pandemic. Parents and teachers, in the context of children’s preparation, raise the issue of how schools will function this year.
“The school year will start with a good epidemiological picture” said the professor of Pulmonology speaking to ERT Theodoros Vasilakopoulosnoting that there has been a steady de-escalation of the pandemic in the last four weeks and especially the last one.
He added that the mobility of the 15th of August and the movements by ships did not change the picture.
“In the last week the de-escalation is more intense” he noted, recalling that “four weeks ago we had 400 admissions daily in hospitals and in the last week only 216”.
Mr. Vasilakopoulos expressed his optimism that “next week we will be below 200 imports”.
Speaking specifically about the days when schools will open he estimated that “we will arrive at the start of schools with a very good epidemiological picture as a whole in the country”.
“I have a feeling that we will have a very good September in terms of the epidemic. There is no strain internationally that shows that it prevails. The ‘Centaur’ variant, where it has appeared, has prevailed only in India.”
Mr. Vasilakopoulos underlined that at the moment the level of immunity to the coronavirus in the country is high, due to the rate of vaccinations and illnesses.
He referred to the “US model” of schools, where they open them completely freely and take extra measures only in states where there is a problem.
He estimated that in our country “we have to deal with the pandemic locally in the future. To take more measures – more tests, expanded use of masks – in the areas where there has been a bigger problem for some time.
“There will be no need for horizontal measures against the coronavirus in the future,” he estimated.
Moreover, yesterday the president of EINAP, Matina Pagonisstated that based on the existing epidemiological data, the opening of schools seems to be done as during the pre-pandemic period, i.e. without restrictions, use of masks and tests.
“Here there is a great anxiety for the parents. With the data we have so far—hits, markers, everything— I think children can’t go to school with masks when everyone is walking around without a maskand they also went on vacation without it masks and measures” initially said the president of EINAP.
“It will be a mockery. There will be bubbles there too, that is, a certain number in the classrooms, and the teachers and professors did a good job, paying attention to the protocols in the schools,” he underlined.
And the Professor of Environmental Engineering, Demosthenes Sarigiannisasked in SKAI a few days ago if there is a need for imposing measures in the winter, he noted that milder and more targeted measures could be imposed compared to the previous “turns” of the pandemic.
“Having one self-test a week in schools would be a very important mechanism to reduce the dispersion that goes through them,” he said indicatively.
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