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Although Professor Mindaugas Stankūnas from the Faculty of Public Sciences of the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (LSMU) claims that some positive signs of quarantine can be observed, according to him, the level of the coronavirus pandemic in the country continues to grow.
“On December 20, the effective reproductive size of the coronavirus was 1.03. We see that the speed of the epidemic continues to increase, but we really want to believe that it will move below the threshold of 1 and we will see some positive trends. So far, sadly, they are such that we are seeing an increase in the number of cases. It is especially worrying that the number of new cases of the day is really high, “said M. Stankūnas at a press conference held in the Presidency.
According to the expert, they also spoke with the president about the changes in population mobility obtained by analyzing Google reports. According to M. Stankūnas, it is more notable that residents visit shopping malls much less frequently as of Wednesday. However, according to the expert, the storm of centers observed in the last week was reflected quite clearly in the mobility statistics.
“Last Monday and Tuesday, there was a very strong increase in mobility in this sector and it was minus 24-25 percent. These are really the photos that were spread on social networks about the storm in supermarkets, they are reflected in Google statistics. We can really see that several compatriots tried to visit the shopping malls on Monday and Tuesday, “said M. Stankūnas.
“Since the introduction of restrictions on (last – ELTA) Wednesday, we can see that the number of visits to supermarkets has decreased significantly again, it was minus 61-64 percent.” It has practically reached the level it had during the first quarantine, “he added.
According to the expert, population mobility data provided by Google showed that Lithuanians are less likely to visit grocery stores since last Wednesday.
“We know that mobility is highly correlated with new cases, with the spread of the infection and we are eager to know the data for Wednesday and Thursday of this week with a little concern, since we can see some increases,” he also acknowledged .
During the conference, M. Stankūnas also recognized that it cannot be ruled out that the mutated coronavirus in the UK is already present in Lithuania.
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