The management of COVID-19 falls apart: “People are trying to get the virus out of the mustache”

New records of COVID-19 cases have been registered in recent days, with 255 infections reported on Thursday and around 281 on Friday.

Epidemiologists were concerned about the spread of the virus in Vilnius County: 180 cases of coronavirus were detected here on Thursday and Friday, and the infection spread to educational and medical institutions, bars, sports clubs and other leisure facilities.

“Every week since the beginning of September, the number of coronavirus cases in Vilnius has increased 1.5 times. The ratio of positive tests to all tests carried out from 0.3 percent. Rose to 3.4 percent in July. . in October. This is a clear trend. ” 15 minutes R.Lingienė commented on Friday.

In response to the situation in Vilnius, the NVSC recommended that the municipality of the capital take action: reduce working hours in bars, restrict leisure activities, promote teleworking, and test target groups more actively. The municipality has promised to conduct more active testing, but with other restrictions noted, it will not rush.

R.Lingienė confirmed that Vilnius residents will undergo prophylactic tests for COVID-19.

“It just came to our notice then. Today we just discussed the technical implementation with the ministry. In Vilnius, we will definitely study young people who work in bars, restaurants, who work in sports clubs, who do not have any COVID-19 poster, so that we can detect as many positive cases as possible so they don’t spread the virus, “he said.

It will give the company a chance to make amends

A representative of the NVSC stressed that in the capital COVID-19 is precisely the contagion among young people who do not feel any symptoms of the disease. But ultimately it causes great harm.

“The spread of the virus in society is increasing. And we don’t really detect all asymptomatic cases because people don’t even know they are infected.

In Vilnius, unlike all of Lithuania, young people are sick. Young people who are infected generally do not feel any symptoms. And sometimes people who have been in contact with them are identified only through three chains, when the infected person has symptoms, ”said the head of the NVSC Vilnius department.

And although the capital has not yet taken more forceful measures, it has assured that talks will be held on Friday with companies that operate here.

“We will see what it will be like here. There are always opportunities. There is definitely a business manager, I think, but if only one party is responsible, nothing will happen here,” said R. Lingienė and doubted there would be enough conversations.

I don’t know when I see the numbers, if that is enough without doing any, not the slightest restriction.

“The municipality offered to motivate everyone, we, of course, also for that, I just don’t know. “I don’t know now, when I look at the numbers, if this will be enough without any, not even the slightest restriction, and I’m not talking about closing in any way,” he said.

“Even if we maximized our strength, I don’t know if that would help at the moment. There are young people in Vilnius who don’t feel any symptoms. People are good, they are not sick, they feel fine, but they don’t think there could be a problem, and In an epidemiological sense it is very bad ”, added R. Lingienė.

Bar staff are reluctant to investigate

The nine new COVID-19 cases in Vilnius are linked to the adjacent bars Bardakas and Sanatorija, which were reported on Thursday. The problem is that the staff at one of the bars avoid investigation.

“Only in one bar where the outbreak was recorded, yesterday all employees were offered a test; we cannot force it. To my knowledge, according to preliminary data, 8 of the 21 employees agreed.

There is an outbreak in that bar, people point to a certain night when he was there. Maybe a client came along who communicated over short distances and infected everyone, it could be. But common sense says it can also be an employee who doesn’t feel symptoms. It seems to me that this is a more plausible option, although of course it is a hypothesis. How can we deny or confirm this? After testing the employees, ”said R. Lingienė.

He regretted that some employees were not behaving responsibly.

“If there is a part of that attitude, here we are only talking about conversations that will end in the growth of cases and there will be nothing. But I am very hopeful that residents do not want to go back to spring in northern Italy or have something like a curfew in Paris, ”said the NVSC representative.

A virus is an enemy that must be respected

NVSC, he says, does not seek to quarantine everyone, does not want people to not socialize.

“It just came to our knowledge then. This is really the last resort, we understand it perfectly. Epidemiologically, this is very good, but bad for the physical and psychological health of people, business and learning. But we exhausted our possibilities, it that we could do, and we went back to business and society so many times, ”said R. Lingienė.

Our goal is not to close anything either.

She considered that people had forgotten how many deaths COVID-19 had caused and urged everyone to take action personally; after all, the number of seriously ill patients in Lithuania is increasing and more people are hospitalized than before.

“This virus is dangerous because we can take a big leap. Epidemiological patterns suggest that asymptomatic forms are increasing.

I don’t know how many people are trying to remove the mustache virus, I can’t imagine it. You have to understand that there is a serious enemy here and you have to respect him. You need to take action.

In the spring, maybe those television pictures were working when people died in gyms in northern Italy. And now everything is calmer, the young people are sick, they forgot. But the virus is not that stupid, it is insidious, we see it very clearly.

And we see that the number of hospitalizations in Lithuania is increasing. There is no tragic number, but if it does increase significantly, it is only a matter of days before the system collapses. And what a burden for the doctors, what a burden for all of us, what a loss if we can no longer receive scheduled services. Once again, everyone will be unhappy and critical. But what did each of us do to avoid this? ”R. Lingienė asked.

Telecommuting and social bubbles

And what would you suggest to bring?

“I would recommend telecommuting as much as possible, of course there are places where you can’t. If that is not possible, it may be possible to change shifts; like one of the banks does, it changes every week or two. And it is clear – to create social bubbles, “said a representative of the NVSC.

Residents, he said, should strive to interact with the same people and strive to keep their social circle unchanged.

“The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control has made it very clear what action should be taken now. In Lithuania, the main focus should now be on controlling the transmission of the virus among young people. These are teleworking and social bubbles. .

If you interact with certain people at work, after work, you can learn to dance somewhere in the club, you can meet the same people at home. There will be no increased risk because you see them every day. If it becomes infected, the circle of contact persons will be small, ”said R. Lingienė.

He also shared how the NVSC is dealing with increased workload recently; after all, it is necessary to report new cases, warn people who have been in contact, trace infection routes, manage fires.

“To find connections between cases, to identify an outbreak of the disease, it is very important to work in our territory, because we already know the places where the virus can spread and the places where it can spread, and we practically remember the infected people in the regions “R. Lingienė commented.

People leave work at NVSC

According to her, contact with infected people is reported by a specially trained group that works not at the territorial level, but at the Lithuanian level.

“Reporting is too late, it is not going the way we want,” lamented R. Lingienė.

Yes, according to her, there is a lack of personnel and new ones without experience.

“There is a group that works in Lithuania, where the members of the group change according to the number of cases in the county; whether there are or not, there are fewer. People get very stressed because their processes rarely change every week. Those who have never done something like this work, because their functions are completely different, ”explains R. Lingienė.

Those who are infected with COVID-19 and who, for example, are from Vilnius, are contacted by the Vilnius Department of the NVSC. So far R.Lingienė, it is possible to do it on time, but it is not known if it will always be this way.

“For people who have gotten sick, there have been no problems so far, but with a lot of effort, scratching the seams. If the weekend is piling up in numbers, we can’t force everyone to go to work. You will lose health. There are already a couple of requests to leave the job, they just don’t accept it anymore, “said R. Lingienė.

A.Veryga: we will seek help

The Minister of Health, Aurelijus Veryga, lamented the situation of the NVSC employees.

“Unfortunately, the situation is not improving and people are getting tired and exhausted.” They don’t get help from angry callers who pour that anger or dissatisfaction onto the very employees who are trying to investigate the critical points. I want to urge everyone who has to face it to be patient, tolerant and understand how hard these people have to work, ”he said at a remote press conference on Friday.

A.Veryga NVSC promised help.

As much as it could, the ministry helped.

“The ministry helped as much as it could, but if we see that the situation will not improve, we will seek more help,” he said, adding that finding additional capacity was not easy.

“You will not get that help just from the street, and it is not just the volunteers who agree to help with such a specific job, the chimney investigation. They can call someone, but they will not investigate the chimneys, they need education,” said A. Veryga and explained that the NVSC is assisted by employees of other institutions subordinate to the Ministry of Health, the NVSC has received additional positions.