Despite the slowed down incidence of incidence of coronavirus, until there is no reason to mitigate the current limitations, the Minister of Health Daniel Pavluts is confident. Moreover, there is a risk of a third wave due to the British strain of infection, and then, perhaps, our current situation will seem not so bad, the Latvian radio-4 reports.
"I understand perfectly that the approach that has been so far is to extend all these restrictions for two weeks, then two more weeks creates expectations that, maybe in two weeks it will end. When it takes time, and all measures are extended for another two weeks, people are disappointed, "
Says D. Pavluts. Therefore, he intends (and, it seems, the Prime Minister of Krisyanis Karinsh is not against) Soon, to propose a new approach - to tie a set of measures to the indicator of a 14-day cumulative incidence per 100 thousand inhabitants. Let's say at the current level (about 600 cases, higher than on average for the EU) is such a set of restrictions, if less than 200, then some relaxation is possible, below the next threshold - still relaxing and so on.
"Now we have achieved stabilization. This is all these difficulties - the fact that our older people are now alone, the fact that children cannot go to school are that people cannot work normally, not going anywhere. But they had a lot of meaning: we still stopped increasing incidence. The last week is ten days stabilization and individual improvements. But the situation is still very serious, very bad. Hospitals are overloaded, the number of seriously ill - those who have a high risk to die - grows. This reality from the street is not visible, being at home, it is difficult to feel. And it is necessary to speak completely frankly about it, "the minister explains the current situation.
In addition to this, all new information about new varieties of the virus - British, South African, Brazilian come from Europe. And in Latvia, several cases of infection with a British strain have already been revealed, so it seems to be here. And it is very disturbing, because, says Pavluts, in the UK itself after his discovery after three months a new, third, wave of infections and captured some other countries. For example, in Ireland in mid-December the same 14-day cumulative incidence was about 108 cases per 100 thousand inhabitants, now more than 800.
"We cannot but reckon with the possibility of such a wave and in Latvia. And, unfortunately, we must allow that the current very high level will seem low to it compared to what can happen then. It may be three, and four thousand new diseases per day (the current Latvian record is 1,861), and the overload of hospitals can achieve a completely different level. Hospitals talk about it and say that with this version we will come to military medicine.
In this situation, I come to the answer that there is no prerequisites for mitigating restrictions. We just do not have rights to it. I publicly spoke that we must accept the fact that the return to normal life in the full sense of this word will have to wait long enough ", -
warned politician.
According to him, if a two-week cumulative morbidity in Latvia reaches a level below 200 cases per 100 thousand inhabitants, it will be possible to begin to consider some relaxation. In the meantime, you can only talk about the individual improvements of the current complex - for example, to give more logic to the current list of products that can be bought by coming to the store.
"Obviously, there are situations that are very difficult to explain - why there is that product in this list, and this is not. This problem must be addressed, "the minister admitted. But the free trade without restrictions, apparently, can not speak soon, because so far the goal remains unchanged: make sure that the inhabitants have to move and contact the inhabitants.
Moreover, as practice shows, even now many of our fellow citizens, coming from abroad or infecting here, in their homeland, are not sent to self-insulation, but they will deal coronavirus in the country. The minister recalled about the case in Vidzeme, when the doctor with the symptoms of COVID-19 took two weeks to patients, and now 170 people in contact with him are in self-insulation.
"I know how tired people are. But these of our actions are living lives. Every day, people die, and just this virus took more than 1000 people. So this is a matter of life and death. [...] We must from the current level in 600 [cases per 100,000 inhabitants for 14 days] to reach at least 200. We must accommodate a goal and together, to all society, move to it, "