Dr. Jankovic: These measures prevented catastrophe, stricter ones would be justified. It's serious

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Srdja Jankovic, a member of the Crisis HQ set up by the Serbian Government to combat the coronavirus epidemic, said today that he sees no conditions for easing the measures at the moment, and that even stricter ones would be justified because the epidemiological situation in Serbia is difficult at the moment.

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He told RTS that during the last meeting of the HQ, two measures were adopted to facilitate the functioning of the system, while those measures that prevent infection remain in force.

"The first is that students who attend online classes can be graded in small groups, and the second is that obligatory negative PCR test will not be required from those citizens who have completed full vaccination in Serbia," said Dr. Jankovic.

Asked whether the easing of the measures will be considered at the next session, Dr. Jankovic said that something like that will be considered, but that the situation is still very serious.

"It's not appropriate to discuss this now. Hospitals are still filling up, as long as we have more patients admitted than discharged we cannot talk about the situation improving. We expect a drop in numbers, but we have no answer as to when that will happen. We proposed even stricter measures. In the end, we got these, which prevented a catastrophe. I cannot emphasize enough how serious the situation is. It is now more difficult than in December, the overburdening of the system has reached an alarming level," he said.

Jankovic also referred to the gatherings that were held in Belgrade last weekend.

"There are people who think that the virus is not dangerous, that it does not exist, they see the problem in the measures. Freedom of opinion is guaranteed, but freedom of action that endangers others is another matter. The facts show that this is a dangerous epidemic, and to deny it in that way is mindless behavior," he pointed out.

He stressed that carrying out mass immunization when we have mass infection is a great challenge.

"Those who are completely vaccinated rarely get sick, but those who are not can get sick. The problem is that we cannot track in real time how many infected people have been vaccinated. It's reasonable that we all keep protecting ourselves even after receiving both doses, but we know that with high exposure, even a person who has recovered or has been vaccinated can get infected. We expect that as the number of vaccinated people grows, the epidemic will subside. But vaccination is not a substitute for anti-epidemic measures," he concluded.

(Telegraf.rs)