Dr. Kisic talks about relaxing measures ahead of Crisis HQ: We won't wait for zero cases to do that

Photo: Tanjug/Rade Prelic

Professor Dr. Darija Kisic Tepavcevic, minister of Labor, Employment, Social and Veteran Affairs and a member of the Crisis HQ for the fight against the coronavirus, said this morning that anti-epidemic measures will certainly be eased before we reach zero new cases on a daily basis. She will not attend the meeting today, because she will be in the Assembly where after 30 years of waiting the Law on Social Cards is on the agenda, but she said that in the coming period our focus should be on the fact the virus is still here.

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"What we can see in the last days and weeks, carried by the wave of fantastic implementation of vaccination, is an atmosphere of optimism. We have reason for optimism, but the virus is still here. We are not strong enough yet. The fact is that the virus is here. The presence of the virus is confirmed in one out of five tested persons, and it should be noted that there are still five to ten times more asymptomatic cases.

The virus is here, we still have to do what we can to stop it from infecting us. We are slowly building collective immunity, and we hope that we will soon reach that level that will prevent the spread of the disease, but we must not stop, we must not relax," she said.

Asked whether we should wait for several hundred (more) to receive the second dose of the vaccine, which has been received by 23,000 citizens so far, in order to relax the measures, she recalled that we still have about 2,000 new cases on a daily basis.

"We are building collective immunity quite successfully compared to most countries, but that must not make us weak. We will be stronger. We must not relax. Our citizens clearly saw that we took an active fight, that we are now attacking the virus. Questions about the easing of measures are always the most popular, but whenever that happens, whether it is today or in some other period of time, it doesn't mean that the virus is not here. We have about 2,000 new case every day. Try to count to 2,000, you will see that this lasts.

We should not be focused on when the measures will be relaxed, when the opening hours will change. It's obvious that the measures will be relaxed before the number is zero, but even when these become single-digit numbers, we should be aware that the virus is still here," said Professor Dr. Darija Kisic Tepavcevic and added that so far, 8,000 people have received the second dose of the vaccine in gerontological centers.

(Telegraf.rs)