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“We are in the hesitation stage and it seems that we are shaking a bit. We are definitely not in the fall stage “, described A. Šimaitis the current situation of the pandemic.
Will the starting mat become an explosion?
In assessing the overall current situation of the entire Lithuanian pandemic, the project manager of the project management group of the Government Chancellery said that we were in a similar place to where we were 3-4 weeks ago, “when an increase seemed to start. that yes it does not become a big bang “.
According to A.Šimaiitis, although we have been in the negative acceleration phase of the spread of the virus for a long time, that is, the pandemic has slowed down, this acceleration becomes positive again for about a week. This trend is especially noticeable in eastern Lithuania, around Vilnius and its county.
“Now we are back in the phase that is positive again and we are climbing again. “There is no sustainable trend that we are really growing or going up now, there are more waves on the ground and especially in the regions,” he said.
The total number of new cases in about 20 municipalities is estimated to be increasing and about 40 are decreasing. This dynamic lasts about 10 days. However, according to Sunday’s data, the percentage of positive polls in 35 Lithuanian municipalities started to increase.
A.Šimaitis emphasized that slightly more cases of symptomatic tests for COVID-19 infection were detected last week, but no significant differences can be seen since February.
“But that positive percentage of symptoms fluctuates like any other indicator of a pandemic. Now we see a slight increase, but basically there are no signs of an explosion or deterioration of the situation, but there are no signs that the situation will improve ”, explained the project manager of the Project Management Group of the Government Office.
Meanwhile, the number of deaths, according to the analyst, is stabilizing and there is currently no surplus of deaths.
According to the analyst, the number of hospitalized and resuscitated patients in hospitals has decreased, taking into account the total number in Lithuania, but the situation largely depends on the individual regions of the country. For example, in Vilnius, for some time now, the occupancy of inpatient and resuscitation beds has been increasing and, say, in Šiauliai, these figures are decreasing and the situation is improving.
According to A.Šimaiitis, this situation could have been determined by the distribution of virus mutations in the regions of the country.
Is the British strain of the virus already dominating in Vilnius?
Presenting the situation regarding virus mutations to the Cabinet of Ministers, the analyst noted that official sequencing data is several weeks late and the latest figures show 20 percent. “British” mutations in Vilnius, but according to other data (loss of the S gene signal) this number can reach 50 percent.
“The sequence data is February 20, if we want to see the distribution of the strains more quickly, we can look at other parameters, such as the loss of the S parameter gene in a PCR test, we can see this quite quickly.
If we look at February 20, that percentage was roughly 20, which was roughly the amount of the British variety in the Vilnius County sequencing data, but we see that over the last month that percentage has risen to 50, ”said A. Šimaitis.
“This is a very strong correlation between the number of dropouts of the S gene and the number of British strains, it can be said that there are many more British strains in Vilnius than in February, it is probably dominant, considering that it is one and one half of spread and one and a half or two times more deadly, “he added.
Where is it most common?
The “British” virus mutation also constitutes a significant part of the disease in Marijampolė County, which has fallen from the red zone to the black zone. Meanwhile, almost no mutations were detected in Šiauliai, Utena and Panevėžys counties. The analyst emphasized that this means that the mutation is not yet widespread in Lithuania, and the situation in hospitals by municipalities also depends on it.
The government representative also noted that the situation in the counties differs significantly and, in general, in Lithuania the “Spanish” strain of the virus still dominates.
“Looking at the general situation in Lithuania, we have a sequencing project that the Lithuanian version of the Spanish variety is dominant at the moment, it started to spread from the summer and it was the variety that dominated the fall wave.
But the British variety is also starting to grow, now accounting for around 15 percent. of all, but here are the data for February, because the sequencing is several weeks behind, and there will probably be more progress now, ”said A. Šimaitis.
In summary, the analyst said that we are in a precarious situation when there is a surge of cases, but there have been no cases of large waves or explosions, as in some other states. However, the situation is highly dependent on the region of the country in question.
According to data from the Department of Statistics, 249 new cases of COVID-19 were detected in the country during the last day, the indicator of new diseases in the last 14 days was 100,000. the population reaches 223.2 cases.
