Crisis HQ meeting over, weekend measures decided: Everything shuts down at midnight

A meeting of the Crisis HQ for the fight against the coronavirus, which started at 11 am, is over, and a decision has been made on the measures that will be valid for the upcoming weekend. All hospitality establishments and shopping centers will be closed for the weekend, no cultural events will be held, while senior elementary school students will switch to online classes, together with high school students who will continue to attend classes in this way next week.

Vojvodina Provincial Secretary of Health Zoran Gojkovic, who addressed the media after the session, said that the epidemiological situation is extraordinary, that we have been having a slight increase in the number of new cases for a while, and that the number is expected to grow.

"What is good is that this number is not expressed exponentially, i.e, there us no sudden increase, but that is mostly the consequence of the fact that vaccination is underway and that a larger number of citizens respect the measures. Vaccination is being carried out continuously. We have almost 700,000 citizens who have been revaccinated and we have used around 1,850,000 vaccines," said Gojkovic.

He added that the decision was made that during the coming weekend, both on Saturday and on Sunday, nothing except grocery stores, pharmacies, health institutions, gas stations, kiosks and food delivery would be open.

"All events scheduled for this weekend have been suspended. We will close everything except these three things. Next week, online classes for high schools will continue, but in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, senior classes of primary schools will switch to online classes, too," said the provincial secretary of health.

He said that it is expected that a new meeting of the Crisis HQ will most likely take place on Monday.

"I hope that thanks to everything we have planned and recommended for the weekend, and the measures for the next working week, we will not have an increase in the number of new cases at an exponential rate, but we hope that with respect of the measures at this time, and that is vaccination, we will succeed in having a number of new cases that the healthcare system can adequately take care of."

"If we look at the countries ahead of us that have a good vaccination rate, we are talking about Israel, they had a sudden jump in the number of infected people but with the increase in the number of vaccinated people, that line flattened and began to drop. We are once again pleading with citizens who have been vaccinated to be taking care, until they develop antibodies in a number that can help them not to develop a severe clinical picture. We are pleading with everyone to get vaccinated," said Gojkovic.

Vaccination to continue unobstructed

He reiterated that no cultural events will be held during the weekend, some things will be specified by the Ministry of Sports, matches that cannot be canceled due to pre-agreed dates will have to take place during the weekend, without audiences.

"All measures are coming into force tonight. Vaccination points will work uninterrupted," said Gojkovic and thanked the medical part of the Crisis HQ and our doctors and nurses because this is who knows which weekend during which they will have no rest.

He also stated that the medical part of the Crisis HQ had asked for the measures to be extended to 7 or 21 days.

When asked why so few people have been vaccinated in smaller communities, he said that this problem is being solved now, that there will be a lot of new vaccination points.

"Transportation of people to vaccination sites is much worse, so we will try to bring as many medical workers as possible to the field, and to enable those who cannot get to the checkpoints to be vaccinated."

The epidemiological situation was the same in the countries that are doing well at the moment with vaccination and epidemiological status, Gojkovic said and repeated that he once again had Israel in mind.

Are there more new strains in Serbia?

Gojkovic said that the culprit for everything that is happens to us is coronavirus, all possible mutations, but that we are also to blame. He said that there are probably other strains in Serbia, but that it was not up to him to talk about that.

"The British strain is to blame, other strains are probably present, but that doesn't matter at this time. The whole world is fighting a battle against coronavirus, if vaccination is done as soon as possible we will be able to exit the mutation problem, if it is not implemented, the virus will have the opportunity to mutate much more, and everything we did will be for nothing. Then we'll go into the same circle all over again. That is why we are pleading with everyone to get vaccinated as soon as possible," said Gojkovic and added that when it comes to whether there are new strains, it is a narrowly professional matter and was not up to him to talk about.

During the previous weekend, cafes, restaurants and shopping centers were open until noon on Saturday, and then closed until 6 am on Monday.

According to the latest data from Thursday afternoon, coronavirus had been confirmed in 2,495 people in the previous 24 hours, out of a total of 17,049 tested. 24 more people died, while 213 patients were on ventilators.

(Telegraf.rs)