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If until now the announcement of the quarantine was determined by the growth of new cases, now, according to M. Strioga, the most important criterion should be the number of people hospitalized.
“Of course, the National Public Health Center (NVSC) will decide here already, but the criteria for issuing quarantine should be the number of patients requiring hospital treatment, the burden on hospitals and the number of deaths.
The number of new infections, especially asymptomatic ones, alone will probably not cause the most severe restrictions.
Clearly, if those infections increase, more and more people will become infected and the virus will spread without mutating. And if there are still people who do not have an adequate immune response when infected, there will simply be selective pressure to export those variants of the virus that are most resistant or completely resistant to an existing immune response. In this case, according to all the laws of evolution, the struggle for existence must be won by those viruses that will have resistance ”, the doctor warned about the dangers.
Still, the doctor doubted that the broader spread of the virus required the strictest restrictions.
“The stricter quarantine restrictions, I think, would be adopted when they already show that a large proportion of people need hospital treatment, or there would be many who are seriously ill and need sick leave. In this sense, the most important criterion should not be the carrier of the virus, which is also bad, but indicators of morbidity, especially serious forms of morbidity ”, explained M. Strioga.
The doctor noted that morbidity rates are also used as the most important criterion in the UK, where the number of new cases is much higher than in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and deaths from coronavirus.
“As a result, they do not tighten, but on the contrary, they relax quarantine measures. But deaths are always delayed by a few weeks, especially now, at this stage of the pandemic, when algorithms for treating patients try to help. to critically ill patients, they are more or less validated.
However, I believe that the first sign of quarantine should be the need for hospital treatment of these patients, without waiting for the death toll to rise, as it may take up to two weeks before we see an increase in deaths ”, said the doctor. .
Mr. Strioga said that the possibility of introducing local quarantine was also being considered: announcing quarantine in Vilnius or Kaunas and vice versa. “
Coronavirus at Klaipeda University Hospital
© Photo of the organization
When asked if those who were quarantined somewhere would have to isolate those who returned from there, Strioga said the NVSC should decide.
“It would probably be logical to restrict both their access to that area, not to shut it down completely, but to prevent them from leaving this area without a more serious reason.
If the municipality entered the area not so much for new cases as for patients who have to be treated in the inpatient and intensive care units, it would already be a sign that there the virus is causing serious health consequences, overloading. the health system. In this case, a stricter quarantine and restrictions would be justified to prevent the spread of the virus from that region to other parts of Lithuania, ”said the interlocutor.
Still, Strioga hoped the coronavirus wave wouldn’t hit as hard this fall as it did last year as more people get vaccinated.
“There is a vaccine to cushion that wave, because it will definitely be one or the other throughout Lithuania or in certain regions. “Vaccination should make a significant contribution to reducing the burden on hospitals and reducing deaths,” Strioga said.
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