Filenews 4 August 2021
Cases in the community are far more than those reported daily, says epidemiologist Dr Michalis Vonatis, who notes that the pandemic will not go away this year, but will still need one to two years to be safe worldwide.
He expresses at another point in its statements the view that the administration of a third dose of the vaccine will be announced this month by the relevant bodies in the EU and America, while noting that hospitalizations in the Intensive Care Units have reached record levels, which should sound the alarm.
The picture of the cases is not representative
Dr. Vonatis says that the picture we see in the community, i.e. the number of cases, is not representative.
"There are many more cases. Because we know that a very small percentage of people hospitalized represent the actual numbers. It's at 3%. So if we continue to have the same levels, because those levels that we see reflect the situation that we were ten days ago, that we had about a thousand cases, if we continue to see the same pressure, the cases that are announced, 500 or 600, do not represent reality," he says.
He notes that hospitalizations are giving us the picture right now. "If we look at the number of hospitalizations compared to the number of cases, we will say that the cases are much fewer and the hospitalizations are high. Hospitalizations always reflect the picture up to fifteen days ago and not reality today. Because some people who are going to get a serious disease don't get sick today, they're going to get sick in seven or ten days so they have to be hospitalized. There is a latency, which puts things in a different situation. Many, too, who are very lightly affected may not be diagnosed," he adds.
Record hospitalizations in Intensive Care
Dr. Vonatis notes that what we need to monitor closely and in every detail are the hospitalizations and even the hospitalizations in Intensive Care because it is these elements that give us the real picture.
"It is clear that hospitalizations in intensive care have increased as much as ever. We have reached 30% of the hospitalized to be in the Increased Care Unit. Therefore, we should be very careful to see whether this trend will continue to increase or start a downward trend. If a downward trend starts in the next ten days, that will be very good because it means we are going in the right direction. But if it continues either the same or the pressure on these units increases, then things are very difficult," he points out.
It takes a large number of tests to format an image
Dr. Vonatis says the more tests the better. As far as free tests are concerned, he notes, there seem to be some bodies that will provide these tests for free. Yesterday we had too many tests, more than 60,000, which is a good number, he noted.
Asked about this, he expressed the hope that we would have a further reduction in the number of cases in the coming days depending on the tests we see, as well as in the hospitalizations.
"These days we have reached the peak of hospitalizations. The pressure on the Intensive Care Units is that we have overcome all precedents,' he added.
The administration of a third dose of vaccine will be announced in August
Dr. Voniati's view is that we are going to need a third dose of vaccine. "It will be announced, I hope, soon, later this month by the relevant bodies that are the European Medicines Agency and the U.S. Centres for Disease Prevention along with the FDA," he notes.
Asked to comment on whether the measures taken are adequate, he says that "it seems that we are stabilised but this will show what is going on with the hospitalizations as well. If the hospitalizations start to go even further, then I think the measures will not be sufficient but it will still depend on how far the vaccination programme goes. We have reached 66%, which is a good percentage of the population, but we have to reach 82-85% to be able to say that we have controlled the situation," he adds.
The pandemic isn't leaving this year, it's going to take another year or two.
Dr. Vonatis says the pandemic is not going to go away in 2021. "We can largely control the pandemic in Cyprus with our vaccination program. Around the world, the pandemic will probably take another couple of years to control. You realize that the risk will always exist there, the risk of a new mutation will exist for introduction even in Cyprus, so things are not very easy. At least for this year, I don't think we can go back to absolute normality," he concludes.
