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“It just came to our attention then. The predictions are worrying, but not tragic. (…) Everything is in our hands ”, said G. Nausėda.
On Friday, he discussed the coronavirus situation with his group of experts, Health Minister Aurelius Veryga, and Prime Minister candidate Ingrida Šimonyte.
The president said the new government was preparing to take control of the coronavirus situation from the outgoing government.
“It just came to our knowledge then.” Both the government itself, the current and the future, deliver the work, implement what has to be implemented, while the other assumes and visualizes its action plan, the algorithm of action in the first days of his work ”, said the President.
He also thanked the doctors and specialists involved in the activities of the council.
“It remains for me to welcome the civic initiative shown by our best experts in this field, who did not waste time for the long weekend, had many discussions, they argued, but produced a really valuable document that will help our health legislators to prepare the best plan of action, “Nausėda said. .
Stankoon: If we lived a normal life, the Grinch would come and steal Christmas
Professor Mindaugas Stankūnas from the Lithuanian Health Sciences University (LSMU) stated that the Council of Physicians and Other Specialists, convened by G. Nausėda, has been working for a week.
“It was a very intense moment because, as you know, it was a long weekend and I had to mobilize with great force. As there was not much time at that time, we decided to focus on the most debated and most sensitive issue at the moment: whether we will be able to provide hospital treatment to people with Covid as this pandemic scenario unfolds, “said Stankūnas.
He presented the figures that were collected: “We see that for some time there has been a percentage so well established that in practically all active cases, around 5 percent. needs hospital care. (…) About half of those treated in the hospital need oxygen masks (…). About a tenth of hospitalized patients need help in resuscitation and intensive care units. “
According to the teacher, what would happen if nothing was done to change the situation was evaluated.
“Let’s say the epidemic continues to develop, we lead a normal life, Grin would actually come and steal Christmas, because according to our estimates, at that time, at the end of December, we would have almost 95,000. people with Covid-19 “, M. Stankūnas presented the forecast.
According to the scientist, in such a situation, around 4.5 – 5 thousand patients would be treated in Lithuanian hospitals. patients.
“You can imagine, I won’t say exactly now, but there are more than 2,000 people in the Kaunas clinics. Beds,” explained M. Stankūnas.
However, according to him, this path was not examined further, because the quarantine already introduced in Lithuania and the completely apocalyptic scenario should not be fulfilled.
Believe that the situation can be controlled
Like another model, a group of specialists studied the following scenario: after the introduction of quarantine, people take it responsibly and take it seriously, and then relax.
“So we see that at the beginning of December we would not have, of course, such a terrible option, but there would be about 50 thousand patients. people, ”said M. Stankūnas.
However, he said, scientists assume that people’s consciousness will be high and rules will be followed.
Despite more pessimistic scenarios, M. Stankūnas said that doctors and scientists believe that the situation can be controlled.
“According to some calculations, it should start on November 20, according to other calculations, on November 27. We should already see really positive developments and our cases should decrease, “said the professor.
He highlighted the importance of contact traceability.
According to M. Stankūnas, if the worst but most likely scenarios do not develop, Lithuania would need around 1,500 beds to treat coronavirus patients.
When asked if the current measures are sufficient for the morbidity curve to begin to decline, the professor answered yes.
“We believe that they will work if the Lithuanians follow those recommendations.” We already started to discuss today and at our meeting of that council there were questions such as how to get out of that quarantine: which requirements should be eliminated first, which are perhaps surplus, which would have the least renewal risk and the like, “Stankūnas said.
The professor emphasized that the traceability of contacts is very important for Lithuania, which is why he named it as one of the most necessary measures in the fight against coronavirus.
For the provision of services, three main objectives were formed
Remigijus Mažeika, director of the Šiauliai Republican Hospital, who led the service provider working group, named three goals set by the experts in the current situation:
– provide the necessary assistance to the entire population
– Treatment of COVID-19 patients according to complexity in the respective service groups
– Preserve as far as possible the provision of the most essential second and third level scheduled services, the failure of which could endanger the health or even the life of the population.
With the following objectives in mind, the following measures are proposed:
– greater participation of primary care services in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with COVID-19. This would require the organization of fever clinics in each municipality. In them, patients would receive both the diagnosis and the necessary care.
To help fever clinics make diagnoses more quickly, experts suggest providing rapid antigen tests. Its execution speed is five minutes, no laboratories are required. Enabling fever clinics in this way is expected to reduce flows to hospital emergency departments.
Funds are needed to run the fever clinics. It is also a prerequisite for all senior supervisors, regardless of form of ownership, to participate in this process.
– with regard to hospitals, it is observed that the treatment facilities they organize can no longer cope with the flow of patients on their own. The limit at which it will be necessary to interrupt scheduled care is approaching, which would be a very bad thing for patients. Experts suggest giving the directors of the organizing institutions more power to organize the opening of wards in support hospitals (regional, district), where patients can be treated once their condition has stabilized.
– when it comes to laboratories, they are overloaded. It is proposed to provide all treatment facilities that will treat COVID-19 patients with rapid one-hour PCR tests. Some organizing bodies already have them.
– Form a brigade of high-level specialists who, if necessary, could provide consulting, medical and diagnostic assistance through the establishment of regional divisions.
Approaching the limit when it will be necessary to limit scheduled services
The head of the service providers working group stated that the lack of specialized doctors in this situation is already a problem.
“Today we are already facing a problem, because we do not have as many infectologists in Lithuania as patients at the moment. Today, these patients are treated by doctors from other specialties. They are usually physicians of various profiles of internal diseases. One of our proposals is to revise the medical standards to regulate in which field doctors can provide these services, ”said R. Mažeika.
According to him, when it comes to the provision of scheduled services and the treatment of patients with coranavirus, the situation is different in each treatment facility.
“As for the Šiauliai Hospital, we have opened four (Covidian) wards. We had a small one, now we have three bigger divisions. The threshold at which we will no longer be able to provide some services is very close. We are already restricting some of them, but those restrictions are very soft, ”said R. Mažeika.
Prepare an exit strategy
As previously announced, as the COVID-19 situation deteriorates across the country, the quarantine will go into effect on Saturday.
“Starting tomorrow, we will all be in a sufficiently restrictive regime. This decision, in the opinion of the expert group, was justified and adopted taking into account the assessment of the epidemiological situation, ”said Vilnius University professor Edita Sužiedelienė.
According to the professor, the only way to manage the situation is to strictly limit contacts, increase social distances, and other measures with which we will start living a few weeks from Saturday. To justify that it works, the researcher cited the example of Ireland, where the situation is stabilized.
“I urge the public to consider these things. Citizen participation is very important here. If the Irish have managed to change their behavior during the quarantine period, I think our society will do the same.
I am moderately optimistic that in a few weeks we will see how the situation develops and we hope it stabilizes, “said E. Sužiedelienė.
In the near future, experts will consider how to handle the situation once it stabilizes. The peak of morbidity is expected to be reached in the second half of November, after which the situation will begin to improve.
“It will not improve suddenly, but it will improve on a slope-type curve. So we have to start thinking about how to stabilize it so that it does not become what we live now, ”said E. Sužiedelienė.
The Panel identified a number of areas of consensus:
Given the current number of people infected and how it will evolve, a testing strategy is needed to then handle the outbreaks that are still emerging from the epidemic. Those chimneys will pose the greatest risk of reverting to the current situation.
solutions must be found for mobilizing staff. These include the mobilization of medical personnel for the treatment of COVID-19 patients, the mobilization of contact tracing personnel, and the mobilization of other service providers needed by the public (such as psychological).
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