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“The government has no way of giving up efforts to control the smokestacks. There is no such mechanism at work in Lithuania. The government has no choice but to introduce and tighten quarantine measures,” a former member told LRT Radio on Wednesday. of the Government Expert Advisory Council on COVID-19.
The new variety complicates the situation
According to him, the spread of the identified South African coronavirus strain in the country further complicates the situation.
Both mutated and vaccinated people can become infected with this mutation. Two cases of a more dangerous mutation were reported in South Africa on Tuesday in Vilnius and Kaunas. However, epidemiologists said they did not have more detailed data on possible outbreaks or spread of this strain.
“We have data that there may be more cases of this type. These were not cases that were obviously imported from other countries, so this variant of the virus is spreading in society, which significantly complicates the situation,” said L. Griškevičius.
According to him, currently registered vaccines are less effective against this mutation, but “there is evidence that it still protects humans from serious consequences.”
“These vaccines are not completely ineffective, they are less effective,” explained the doctor.
“Precise proactive measures are very important, which unfortunately currently works very poorly in Lithuania, they have not been implemented correctly so far, such as focus identification, testing, contact tracing, isolation and of course the preventive tests and the same virus, variants and infected people, proactive search, “said a doctor from the Santara clinics.
L. Griškevičius and several other former members withdrew from the expert council on Monday. According to the representative of the Prime Minister – “due to the high level of employment.”
NVSC proposes to transfer functions to the police
According to L. Griškevičius, the expert council, which started work three months ago due to the sharp increase in the number of new cases and mortality, in addition to quarantine and vaccination, also recommended reorganizing the NVSC to control hotspots.
“Quarantine has been introduced, vaccination has started, but this part, the last one, has not been carried out. And quarantine measures have been triggered, the number of cases has decreased, but we do not have the normal infrastructure of the National Center for Public Health to manage hotspots and ensure contact tracing. Therefore, we do not have this chain of command for the pandemic and the idea of delegating the functions of the Public Health Center to the Ministry of the Interior is entirely possible and probably sustainable, because the current structure in the Ministry of Health, the National Center for Public Health simply does not perform these functions, ”he said.
In addition, he stressed that effective control of outbreaks is possible when the prevalence of the virus is not high.
The mayor of Marijampolė, Povilas Isoda, expressed on Wednesday the idea of involving the police in the investigation and management of the chimney scan on LRT radio.
According to him, many people, while avoiding restrictions, currently tend to hide, not to reveal information that is important to identify virus outbreaks and prevent their spread.
“It seems that superior solutions and greater forces are needed, because it is human and physically impossible to carry out the existing forces that the NVSC has (…). Personally, it seems to me that that police presence on the road probably has a minor effect on contracting that virus. If the police were involved to any extent in these investigations, they are professional when it comes to talking to people … I think the impact would be huge, ”Isoda said.
“I was ill and the police came to check on me, it feels human that the attitude is different when the police do it,” added the mayor.
The National Center for Public Health published epidemiological survey data on a daily basis, but announced on March 15 that it would do so weekly. However, as of March 15, the NVSC has not released information on epidemiological investigations.
