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M. Stankūnas shared his ideas on his Facebook account.
“The straw broke the camel’s back”: it was with this expression of Eastern philosophy that the expert described the current situation of the coronavirus in Lithuania.
“As of May 10. We had 604 cases per 100,000 population in 14 days, and now only half (323.5) of that number remains. If we look at the 7-day average of new COVID-19 cases, That change is even more impressive, from 1200 (May 10) to 495 (May 28).
The number of hospitalized patients also decreased significantly from 1,120 to 774 during the same period, ”writes M. Stankūnas.
It points out that the number of patients treated with COVID-19 in the intensive care unit is also decreasing, but that the decline began much earlier, reaching a peak on April 28, when there were 145 of these patients, and today it has fallen to 93 .
“The percentage of positive diagnostic tests is 2.8 percent. We have not seen such a number since 2020. Final September. And it is this indicator that is one of the most important, the one that shows the management of the epidemic”, writes the expert.
According to him, it is now disappointing that the drop in the number of deaths from COVID-19 has stalled.
Photo by Lukas Balandis / 15min / Mindaugas Stankūnas
“It is clear that it is not as terrible as it was in December-January, but its fall” stuck “in March and does not go down much. The figures of the last days seem to show something more optimistic,” writes M. Stankūnas on Facebook.
We started to bend the optimistic scenario
At the end of March, three possible scenarios for the development of the epidemic were presented: pessimistic, moderate and optimistic.
Such a sudden drop in cases cannot be a surprise.
“The end of April showed that we are moving towards a more pessimistic scenario (for example, 1,598 new cases of COVID-19 were detected on April 28) and the possibility of reaching the limit of 2,500-3,000 cases per day cannot be ruled out.
But we see that that did not happen. Not only that, we began to bend an optimistic scenario, according to which we only had to see the numbers that we see now after a couple of weeks. Such a sudden drop in cases cannot be surprising, ”writes M. Stankūnas.
According to the expert, there are several main reasons why this happened. The first reason is vaccination.
“I’ve already mentioned the need to wait for your show to start. Well, it started. And today we already have over a MILLION people vaccinated. You can’t complain about the vaccination rate, but it’s still very important to encourage people from the riskier groups (+65 years) to do it ”, writes the LSMU professor.
The second reason is the number of people who have acquired immunity. According to M. Stankūnas, based on Israel’s experience, a clearer drop in cases is expected to begin when it reaches 40%. the scope of vaccination. However, it started much earlier, at 30 percent. riba.
“I think it could be due to the fact that there is a higher proportion of people who have acquired immunity naturally than we know officially. It is very likely that significantly more people were infected between November and January, “writes a member of the Council of Health Experts on Facebook.
According to him, to know how many people have actually contracted the coronavirus, a repetition of the seroepidemiological study must be carried out.
The third reason is non-pharmaceutical / quarantine reasons. According to M. Stankūnas, this contributed to slowing down the spread of the British strain (B.1.1.7) and “buying” time for vaccination.
“Still, many activities have been limited so far and we did not observe the ‘storm’ of people when they started being released. Let’s say that according to Google’s mobility report, the number of visits to shopping malls in Lithuania (on weekdays) it remains at -25 percent than in January 2020. And from what I have seen in stores, most follow the recommendations “, writes the expert.
The fourth reason, according to M. Stankūnas, is the abundance of evidence. According to him, Lithuania is implementing it intensively, currently between 19 and 20 thousand. during the day.
“Only about 13,000 PCR tests are done. This helps detect infections early and control the spread of the virus,” he writes.
Photo by Rokas Lukoševičius / 15min / Friday in Vilnius Old Town
And the fifth reason is the weather.
“I’m not sure of its direct influence, but the indirect is really felt. People spend more time outdoors, where the risk of infection is much lower, ”writes the LSMU professor.
According to M. Stankūnas, these five factors determined that we are in an optimistic scenario.
Yet, writes a member of the Council of Health Experts, people’s awareness and daily efforts contributed the most.
“What could have been the ‘drop’ of that saying that ‘broke’ the COVID-19 curve? I think ‘straw’ was your small but very important daily effort that I mentioned earlier. Without these efforts, none of this would have happened. Thank you for that! ”- MM Stankūnas rejoices.
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