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In an interview with Gitan Nauseda, what does the president think should be done to handle the coronavirus pandemic and if he sees his own mistakes that could have allowed the virus to escape?
The first day of Christmas seems to want to be enjoyed, but here we don’t have much that joy. Hospitals are crammed with coronaviruses, they are resurrected, and dozens of people die every day. It says the quarantine policy needs to be tightened. How do you imagine what else needs to be done?
I believe that we must first ensure that the measures that have already been taken some time ago produce results. Now are the days when we will notice that the coronavirus curve is starting to fall and the number of cases is decreasing, or we will see that even more stringent measures are needed. So today, I don’t want to go ahead and say that we desperately need to do something else to adjust it.
First, let’s make sure that the tools we’ve used work. I’m very hopeful that once they are up and running, we can ease those requirements a bit. But it certainly won’t be today.
We introduced those new restrictions, reduced traffic, and closed some stores. Everything seems to be going for the better, but now a new strain of coronavirus has emerged. How do you think we are prepared for this new wave, because the new variety is 70 percent? more contagious?
There should not be such an urgent conclusion that we will no longer deal with this variety now. Yes, it can be even more difficult to contract or treat, you can have an even higher level of infection and consequently a level of transmission. But the most important thing is the tools we use. And those measures are designed to reduce the mobility of people.
We don’t want to reduce mobility because we want to make people’s lives sad. Reduced mobility is mainly necessary to prevent transmission of the virus. Mobility rates in Lithuania are really decreasing, as our statistics confirm, and this suggests that if nothing special happens, the spread of the virus should slow down and we will simply start to control the situation again.
However, there are two types of mobility: one within Lithuania and the other with other countries. We have now suspended that contact with the United Kingdom, but it is already known that this new strain of the virus has been registered in Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands and other countries. Maybe then Lithuania needs to close like during the first wave?
Lithuania cannot close unilaterally, it is a joint decision. In the European Council we have constantly said that this must be a coordinated action, unlike during the first wave of the pandemic, when there really was a lot of chaos. This time, I think the tools we have used are the right ones.
Ban people from visiting their parents, if we are talking about the closest family, a family group, nobody would want to do that. The decision in the UK is because we have this change in the UK and we must react sharply to it. What has been done, and what has been done on time, Lithuania was one of the first countries to react to it, along with our neighbors in the Baltic.
Vaccinations should start on these days. We will get around 10 thousand. vaccines and this is a drop in the bucket. What are the arrangements for when new vaccines will arrive?
I don’t want to scare people off, other batches of vaccines will come from the same manufacturer, additional batches and other manufacturers, specifically Moderna, will soon be on the track. I think we really should seize every opportunity. It is better to have too much vaccine than to have too little.
Mr President, in your opinion, what happened was that we all set an example during the first wave, and now we are somewhere. This is where we don’t get along and where do we spend it?
I think we really relaxed a bit after the success of the first wave and actually in the summer it seemed like we were putting on everyone’s hat and putting on the virus. But that didn’t happen, the second wave came and it turned out to be much more dangerous than the first wave. And there were people here in Lithuania who were on vacation for a long time.
After that came the election, the electoral period began, and again it was somewhat uncomfortable to apply very strict measures so as not to irritate the electorate. Unfortunately, these are the things in the political cycle that we have not been able to avoid.
However, President, don’t you see your fault of some kind, negligence? Perhaps you lacked that determination? Maybe you didn’t hit your fist in time?
That is what we did, we mobilized our experts and medical professionals to help us find a way out of this situation. Our council of health experts has allowed for a sufficiently smooth transition from the work of the previous government and the transfer of that work to the new government. I think we have done it quite successfully.
On how he agrees with the Government of Ingrida Šimonytė, what this Christmas will be like in the Nausėdai House and what the president wishes to all the people of Lithuania with the first lady Diana Nausėdienė, in the video at the top of the text.
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