“There will be a new summer wave of coronavirus infections that will not affect us,” Health Minister Thanos Pleuris said on Thursday, adding that “new restrictions will not be necessary.”
“We expected this increase and it makes sense given the availability of more powertrain options, so restrictions are meaningless,” said Pleuris to Skai TV the day after the National Health Organization EODY announced 9288 new infections compared with 4496 a week earlier.
He stated that there appeared to be no need for the return of the measures, but asked vulnerable groups in society to “observe some self-protection measures.”
“We expected this increase, and this is logical, since we have more contagious mutations, so restrictive measures are meaningless,” Plevris emphasized. Explaining why there has been an increase in coronavirus cases in recent days, Thanos Pleuris said health experts have noted two characteristics:
- Severe re-infection rate.
- Omicron mutations appear to have such a characteristic that a person infected with Omicron is not protected from them.
Asked about the course of the pandemic over the summer, Pleuris said that “there will be fluctuations, but there will be no pressure on the healthcare system. But since September, we are ready, like all Member States, even with these mutations, that there will definitely be a plan why there will be more cases.”
He said there are currently fewer than 800 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in the country, several thousand fewer than last year. 103 Covid patients were intubated in hospital intensive care units on Wednesday, according to EODY data, and the number is on a downward trend.
When asked what would be the first measure that he would return, the Minister of Health declined to answer, adding that he would judge everything depending on the load on the healthcare system. “There may be many measures, or there may be nothing,” he said. He added that much will depend on the burden on the healthcare system.
Minister Pleuris noted that many of the new cases are associated with re-infection, and many of them are associated with subvariants of the Omicron strain, for which vaccines, he said, “do not provide protection against disease, but provide protection against serious disease.”
Note, however, that health authorities do not add “reinfections” to the daily numbers of infections, although statistics show that virtually all intubated have been vaccinated or have been previously ill.
“We expected this increase and it makes sense given the availability of more powertrain options, so restrictions are meaningless,” said Pleuris to Skai TV the day after the National Health Organization EODY announced 9288 new infections compared with 4496 a week earlier.
He stated that there appeared to be no need for the return of the measures, but asked vulnerable groups in society to “observe some self-protection measures.”
“We expected this increase, and this is logical, since we have more contagious mutations, so restrictive measures are meaningless,” Plevris emphasized. Explaining why there has been an increase in coronavirus cases in recent days, Thanos Pleuris said health experts have noted two characteristics:
- Severe re-infection rate.
- Omicron mutations appear to have such a characteristic that a person infected with Omicron is not protected from them.
Asked about the course of the pandemic over the summer, Pleuris said that “there will be fluctuations, but there will be no pressure on the healthcare system. But since September, we are ready, like all Member States, even with these mutations, that there will definitely be a plan why there will be more cases.”
He said there are currently fewer than 800 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in the country, several thousand fewer than last year. 103 Covid patients were intubated in hospital intensive care units on Wednesday, according to EODY data, and the number is on a downward trend.
When asked what would be the first measure that he would return, the Minister of Health declined to answer, adding that he would judge everything depending on the load on the healthcare system. “There may be many measures, or there may be nothing,” he said. He added that much will depend on the burden on the healthcare system.
Minister Pleuris noted that many of the new cases are associated with re-infection, and many of them are associated with subvariants of the Omicron strain, for which vaccines, he said, “do not provide protection against disease, but provide protection against serious disease.”
Note, however, that health authorities do not add “reinfections” to the daily numbers of infections, although statistics show that virtually all intubated have been vaccinated or have been previously ill.
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