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Epidemiologists say they are horrified to observe the mass gatherings of people near lit Christmas trees on Saturday in large cities and warn that this could soon further increase the number of people infected with the coronavirus.
“We could say that the crowds could be considered small if we had a different number of cases and a different internal spread of the infection in the country. We are currently in a situation where each of our additional social contacts is an additional risk and a additional opportunity for case statistics to grow, ”Justina Petravičienė, spokeswoman for the National Center for Public Health, told LRT Television on Sunday.
According to her, the crowds of people in city squares are particularly perplexed by the increasing workload of doctors currently treating a growing number of Covid-19 patients in the country’s hospitals.
“There is a very difficult situation in medical institutions, so public health professionals view this situation with horror. “I imagine how doctors are seeing this situation, who are doing everything possible to save the lives of people who need artificial lung ventilation, who need resuscitation or intensive care,” said a spokeswoman for the center.
Vilnius, Kaunas and Panevėžys lit the Christmas trees in the cities on Saturday.
Although the organizers of the events called to see it on television and urged not to meet because of the festive green curls, some residents ignored these calls. Crowds of people gathered in the squares near the fir trees, and there were even traffic jams in the capital.
Last day, 1976 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in Lithuania, 11 people died from coronavirus, the Statistics Department reported on Sunday. 1,798 COVID-19 patients are treated in hospitals, 140 of them in resuscitation.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, 60 thousand people have been infected with COVID-19 in the country, 14 thousand 120 patients have recovered, 45 thousand are still sick. 355 people.
A total of 491 people died from coronavirus in Lithuania.
