Veryga reacted to people’s intentions to celebrate: if so, we will have the third wave of COVID-19

For a remote press conference from the Ministry of Health, which was attended by A.Veryga, Danas Bakša, Director of the National Public Health Laboratory (NVSPL) and Daiva Razmuvien epide, an epidemiologist at the National Center for Public Health (NVSC), see here:

On the occasion of the upcoming holidays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, A.Veryga wishes understanding to the neighbors.

He mentioned that he shared people’s comments on a social media account after a post about commissioned rural tourism farms.

“Well, when people make it clear that we are celebrating and celebrating, no government will tell us how to behave during the holidays. That, if so, it certainly cannot be ruled out that, about two weeks after the Christmas holidays, we will not even have a second wave, if not a third wave, which could become really very uncontrollable phenomena. I just want to remind you that medical institutions are already experiencing great tension and yet I invite you to think in time and not to organize such celebrations “, urged the Acting Minister of Health.

Presented the proposed tightening

According to A. Veryga, tomorrow the government will be offered to reduce the number of people who gather in public to two people (now five people from more than one family can join). A distance of 2 meters should be kept between these two groups of people.

“This proposal is related to the visible and persistent trends of gathering larger groups of people at various times as the holiday season approaches. “I really want to encourage cities to act responsibly and communicate very responsibly when planning Christmas tree lighting ceremonies or other events, so that it doesn’t happen yet, as it did in several cities, when a lot of people gather to see the lighting of the Christmas tree, “he said.

This proposal is related to the visible and persistent trends in the approach of the festive period to bring together larger groups of people on various occasions.

It will also be recommended to recommend not using short-term sales promotion measures – sales, discounts, tastings at public points of sale – shops, supermarkets, markets and the like. Excluding online commerce.

Bede to quarantine breach

While some specialists criticized the fact that the decision on the introduction of the quarantine had to be made earlier, A.Veryga said that certain adjustments were introduced quite early.

However, the quarantine conditions are not met, they are ignored.

“Unfortunately, we see that there are cases where the quarantine regime, the quarantine conditions are just not met, they are ignored for a variety of reasons,” he said.

Commenting on a possible further tightening, the minister of health in charge mentioned a proposal to bring forward the winter holidays for school children.

The distance education option is also considered.

Vaccines: from borrowed funds

A.Veryga said that the information floating in the public about the fact that next year the state budget does not provide funds for the purchase of vaccines is incorrect.

He assured that the money in the budget of the Compulsory Medical Insurance Fund and should not have been provided.

He explained that the government had decided the principles for the purchase of vaccines: diversify the purchase, make the joint purchase in the European Union, vaccinate 70%. population of the country.

And when there is already a clear amount needed to buy vaccines, when it is clear how many vaccines will be registered and how many will be available for Lithuania, then a decision will have to be made in the Government on the allocation of funds. And it was agreed in the government that the vaccines would be purchased with funds borrowed from the state, “he said.

Coronavirus was detected in the newborn

According to D.Razmuvienė, yesterday there were no new outbreaks, the old ones continue.

He stressed that Monday’s family outbreaks accounted for 15 percent of all recently recorded COVID-19 cases.

The coronavirus was reported to be confirmed in a newborn whose mother had an infection.

The average age of people who died from COVID-19 on Monday was 74.

In hospitals – 1887 infected

During the previous day, 1,187 new cases of coronavirus were confirmed in Lithuania.

Another 19 people died.

Hospitals treat 1,887 patients with confirmed coronavirus, 149 of whom were in resuscitation.

A total of 62,515 cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in the country.

15,077 people recovered from the disease and 46,665 were ill.

NVSC reports that 272 of the newly registered COVID-19 cases were detected in Kaunas, 254 – in Vilnius, 179 – in Šiauliai, 138 – in Klaipėda, 107 – in Panevėžys, 86 – in Alytus, 79 – in Marijampolė counties .

Another 26 cases of infection were confirmed in Tauragė, 23 in Telšiai and 17 in Utena counties.

6 cases have not yet been assigned to any region of the country due to lack of information. The regions to which to assign these cases will be determined after the epidemiological study.

Currently there have been 589 cases that entered the NVSC system during work, epidemiological diagnoses have been carried out and the rest are being carried out today.