The discussions that the pandemic is coming to its end, are making the world complacent[/B] and not protecting it, he told the Cyprus News Agency, a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC), Professor of Microbiology/Molecular Virology at the University of Nicosia Medical School Dr Petros Karagiannis, stressing that the virus is among us and the necessary protective measures need to be taken.
"The point is that we cannot predict the end of the pandemic and the discussions that are taking place are making people complacent. The virus is still among us, we have to be careful so that we do not give the virus the opportunity to give us a new variant, which is problematic. We definitely need to reduce the number of cases because only by keeping the virus contained will we not give it the opportunity to plague us further," he said.
"In the autumn I think again we will have an increase in cases for obvious reasons. Most of us will have dropped our immunity by then and maybe then we will think about a 4th dose in the general population," Dr. Karagiannis noted.
Asked about the increase in cases in recent days, he said that at the moment he does not consider the number of cases to be of particular concern. "Of course this will become apparent in the coming days if there will be an increase in hospitalizations."
He added that "there will definitely be because of the increase in cases but it will not be so intense that it will put pressure on the health system unless we continue to have an upward trend and pass the previous levels, which I don't think so."
Asked what the spike is due to, he said that because Omicron is less virulent, some people thought we were done with the pandemic. "That's not the case, we always warn that in some people and Omicron can cause problems and we see that," he said. "Also, the fact thatand self-protection measures are not being followed reverently as before. A lot of people started not wearing masks outdoors and this is happening indoors as well," he added.
Asked to comment on how much hospitalizations will increase,
Dr. Karagiannis said we will have to see from tracing exactly where the cases detected last week are, where they are distributed by age group.
"I expect schools to maintain the lead because up to now they have accounted for 30% of cases, even though they have shown improvement week by week," he said.
Also, he continued, "whether most of the other cases are age groups that socially because of Ash Wednesday and Apokreo moved to different places where there was confusion and got stuck." "If that is the case, then the health system will not be under so much pressure because we don't expect that these people, if they are also vaccinated, that they will need hospitalisation," he noted."
In relation to the administration of the 4th dose of vaccine, the Professor said the issue was discussed in the SSC in the past and that now the decision rests with the Vaccination Committee.
He noted that the data from Israel that went on to the 4th dose did not further increase antibody levels.
"But we are seeing that we are losing seniors lately which perhaps tells us that in this age group who were first vaccinated with the 3rd dose, immunity has dropped and perhaps they need a 4th dose. The others who will need a 4th dose are those who are immune suppressed, and who do not respond to the vaccines. So these individuals may need further protection," he said."
Source: CNA
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