Kon on new, "stealth" Omicron strain: We don't know its impact on the epidemiological situation

As he stressed, we are at the peak of the epidemic wave

Predrag Kon has commented on the new strain of coronavirus, the number of new cases and deaths, as well as a scenario that medical professionals knew about 15 years ago. The number of new cases is growing, then declining, but the number of deaths is increasing.

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Epidemiologist and member of the Crisis HQ, Dr. Predrag Kon, explained the "mathematics" of coronavirus in Serbia and mentioned the latest, "stealth" Omicron strain. He said that the the wave will weaken, but that one thing is especially worrying.

"To understand the situation, we are at the maximum of this wave and we could say that we will gradually exit it. We will experience calming in the coming weeks, but a stealth Omicron has appeared where we cannot claim that it will not catch us and we don't know its impact on the epidemiological situation," Kon told Pink.

"We must understand that the sudden jump in numbers after the New Year happened in the population aged between 20 and 50, that was two thirds of those infected. And now it is spilling over to children under the age of 18, and those between the ages of 50 and 69. There is less influence in those over 70, but that is the second phase that my colleague Professor Tiodorovic spoke about. Now the elderly and those with weaker immunity are those who are getting sick and hospitalized.

Unfortunately, among them are the more serious cases with comorbidities and unvaccinated people who experience severe forms of the disease and death, those are usually reserved for unvaccinated people," said Kon.

"When we talk about the number of deaths now, that is true, but we need to understand that it has a dynamic by age. Due to the spillover to children, which happened even before the school started, we had the opportunity to see Vojvodina, where school starts on January 10, why that is important. We could see what is happening there and see what is expected in central Serbia and Belgrade," he said.

Asked to comment on the case that happened in the Healthcare Center in Kovacica, where fake vaccination certificates were sold for several hundred euros, Dr. Kon waved his hand.

"There cannot be a positive reaction, I don't know what that is about exactly, but it was discussed more than 15 years ago when we were thinking about what the pandemics would look like. What will happen and what actions, ethically unacceptable or criminal, will happen. I really have nothing to say. If that is true, it implies appropriate sanctions," he said.

(Telegraf.rs)