Coronavirus: «Alarm bell» from WHO - There will be more mutations, the pandemic is not over

«Brake» the optimistic mood of the days on the basis of which the pandemic of coronavirus ends, puts the chief scientist of the World Health Organization (WHO), Sumia Swaminathan, which said on Friday that the world has not yet reached that stage, as there will be more mutations.

«We have seen the virus evolving, mutating...so we know there will be more variants, more worrying mutations, so we are not at the end of the pandemic,» Swaminathan told reporters in South Africa where she is visiting vaccine production plants with the WHO director-general, Tedros Andanom Gebreyes.

What the experts estimate

Most scientists are not in a hurry to make over-optimistic predictions either. Typically, the professor of Pulmonology and Intensive Care, Theodoros Vassilakopoulos, estimates that the wave of the coronavirus pandemic will subside towards Easter, explaining the next steps towards the removal of the measures.

«With one million cases since the beginning of the year, five million, triple vaccinated and a large percentage of those vaccinated with two doses who will make the third dose and those who get sick from now on, we will reach a point that around Easter this wave will be significantly reduced as the majority of the Greek population will have immunological coverage.

All this, barring an unexpected event and the appearance of a new mutation», Mr. Vassilakopoulos explained, speaking to SKAI.
Some measures, he explained, will not be completely removed, such as the use of masks on public transport during peak hours.

At the same time, he noted that it would not be sanitary to lift the measures for the unvaccinated unless, he said, the vaccination coverage rate reaches 90-95% so they would not be threatened by the virus.

New updated vaccines are being tested

In relation to the complete lifting of measures in foreign countries, he stressed that there is a huge vaccination coverage and even at ages where it is necessary. «It is more importantly the high rates in the over 60s that gives 90% of deaths.

It is characteristic that yesterday in our country 4 people under 60 died and the rest were over 60».

Finally, he said that the Moderna and the Pfizer are testing new updated vaccines which, he pointed out, will be effective for a much longer period of time as they will have been preceded by earlier doses of the vaccines.

Measures go away, the pandemic stays

The pandemic does not seem to have disappeared, but gradually the government, with the contribution of experts, is fully liberating the country from the measures.

The pandemic remains and there are scientific voices that believe that we are not yet out of the nightmare, as the possibility of a new aggressive mutation is open.

Until then, however, the government has decided, following the example of other European countries, to go to the complete de-escalation of measures, at least for the vaccinated, in order to return to a daily routine that resembles that of 2019.

The three reasons for lifting the measures

According to ethnos.gr, the government officials put forward three main reasons to lift the measures to the greatest extent possible:

• They estimated that citizens are tired of two long years of restrictions and now even the basic measures are not respected.
  It is also indicative, as recorded in the meetings that have taken place, that even the simple mask is no longer used, especially outdoors. That is why, moreover, there are no longer any checks and no fines are imposed by the competent authorities, with a few exceptions.

• Also, another reason is that most of society, about 8 out of 10 are vaccinated and therefore there is protection. In the decision, of course, there is also the issue of personal liability and the protection that everyone should provide for themselves, either by vaccine or wearing a mask voluntarily to avoid a coronavirus infection.
  It is no coincidence that the Professor of Pediatrics - Infectious Diseases, Vana Papaevangelou essentially noted that we have to learn to live with the virus and although the epidemiological burden is high, it is possible to relax measures.

«We have, many times, pointed out that the virus will find the unvaccinated and infect them. But as we move forward, we are cautiously optimistic based on the assessment of hard indicators and we hope that the gradual lifting of restrictions is possible. It is obvious, of course, that we are going through a phase where we will have to learn to coexist, with the virus circulating among us and where each of us will have to make our own decisions about how much we accept our exposure to it,» she said.

-The third reason that led the government to proceed with the lifting of the measures is that similar decisions are taken by other European countries, with the aim of getting the economy and society fully operational.
Moreover, although almost all activities are now open and unmetered, the traffic in the shops, in the focus and economic activities in general, is limited. A fact attributed by government officials to both the habit of citizens staying home more after two years of restrictions, the increases observed and the fear of tomorrow that has arisen due to the pandemic.

It is noteworthy, however, that many scientists on the committee believe that we may have another wave of the pandemic, especially now that the country is fully open and citizens have stopped complying with the measures, so a new variant strain could appear again.