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“Covid-19 pandemic: Second wave” was the theme of the 6th cycle of conferences on public health, organized by the Institute of Public Health.
In the current circumstances, the topic of today’s debate could not be other than the covid-19 pandemic and the sars-cov-2 corona, which until now has prevailed in its confrontation with what is considered the most perfect universe known, which redefined as homo sapiens (wise man). A painful finding ”, began the discussion the professor and director of the Institute of Public Health, Panagiotis Bechrakis.
The coronavirus not only provocatively conquered humanity, Behrakis said, but with a “mix of practical irony and sarcasm” it highlighted the lack of wisdom. “The humanity of the 21st century has been brought to a medical and social nadir,” he said.
He then referred to the lack of prevention, saying that the medical science of the 21st century, although it made giant strides in the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases, systematically and persistently neglected prevention, even though the occurrence of such a pandemic was clearly expected. . highlighted in the past. He stressed the need to focus on cooperation and said that now, with the crisis, it was even more important to know whether or not the world community could cope with such a crisis. As Mr. Behrakis said, without specific guidelines, every corner of the world is taking action to tackle an extremely serious global problem. The WHO, but also similar bodies in the EU and North America, have de facto proved powerless to rise to the occasion, so the virus continues to spread.
Furthermore, “contradictory, vague and even erroneous positions of political leaders, scientists or influential personalities have caused great confusion in practice.” He cited the use of a mask as an example, which has sometimes been touted as dangerous and sometimes mandatory, and even covid-19 has been reported, sometimes as a simple flu and sometimes as a tragic disease.
Safety and health protection map
During her greeting, the Deputy Minister of Health in charge of mental health, Zoe Rapti, said that we are in the second wave of the pandemic, highlighting that Greece is doing better than other countries, but this should not reassure us in any way.
He spoke of strengthening the public health system and said the government had used it this summer to protect the system with more intensive care units. His development plan is underway and the goal is to create 1,200 ICU beds, he said. Another important element, said Ms Rapti, is the indicator of positivity in all the population tests that are carried out, which still remains low compared to other European countries. Greece currently ranks 111th in the world in deaths per million inhabitants.
He also said that the pandemic creates a new state of stress in people, leading to a general feeling of exhaustion and anxiety about the future. He announced that a map of health security and protection against the coronavirus is being prepared, which will include 4 levels of preventive measures for each regional unit in the country, and this map will be updated every two weeks based on the recommendations of infectious disease specialists. He also said that special emphasis is given to dealing with the psychological consequences caused by the coronavirus, both at the level of prevention and treatment.
“Social distancing and use of masks, epidemiology of the new coronavirus: what we know and what we are not so sure about” was the theme developed by the adjunct professor of Public Health at the European University of Cyprus, Thodoris Lytras.
Among other things, he referred to social distancing and the use of masks. The most important argument in favor of masks is the precautionary principle, he said, and there is no point arguing how confident we are of the effectiveness of the measure, which mask to wear, etc. “And the slightest possibility that there is” It is effective, there are signs of effectiveness, it is easy to apply, “he said.
But the mask, as he said, does not replace the main precautionary measure that is the distances. When distances are impossible, then we must resort to the mask. We also need to know that the mask protects others from us and not so much us from others and is also a sign of good social behavior. “The most important thing is to limit social contacts to what is really needed, and epidemiological surveillance is absolutely essential to regulate the intensity of our social distancing,” he said. The goal is to maintain a constant low rate of new infections.
On the treatments and the development of vaccines, the emeritus professor of Pathology-EKPA Infections, George Saroglou, spoke, while Stefanos Chandakas, obstetrician-gynecologist, developed the topic “Pregnancy and covid-19”.
The common denominator of all the speakers, however, was that we still have a long way to go, and our tools at this time to reduce the spread of the virus are the observance of personal protection measures.
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