Kon: We can reintroduce certain measures; the situation is a bit worrying

Kon: We can reintroduce certain measures; the situation is a bit worrying

On the occasion of the leap in the number of newly infected with the COVID-19 virus, Kon added for "Blic" that even if there is another wave, he believes that there will be no need to introduce a state of emergency.

Out of 5.239 people who were tested until yesterday at 3 pm, 69 of them were positive, which speaks of an increase in the number of patients, considering that ten days ago we had drastically fewer infected people.

The good news is that there were no deaths yesterday, while there are 15 patients on respirators, the same as the day before.

Commenting on the leap in the number of infected, Dr Kon says that this is a situation that is a little worrying, but only until it is revealed how someone is infected.

"We have situations in Novi Pazar and Tutin that are the result of relaxation during Bajram celebrations, but we also have groups of infected people in Belgrade. These are hotspots that we keep under control. In addition, we have 15 individual cases in Belgrade that we monitor and do serious work on discovering how they became infected", Dr Kon points out.

As he says, we are in the calming phase, but in the following period, slight oscillations in the number of infected are possible.

"We are in the period of opening the country, organizing weddings and various types of gatherings, as well as entrance exams and students return to dormitories, and we can expect certain excessive situations such as in Novi Pazar, Tutin, in dormitories. However, the summer period protects us "because all respiratory infections are seasonal and affected by winter. We also have highly developed contact surveillance and extensive testing, so we do not expect a drastic deterioration of the epidemiological situation," he says.

He adds that the situation is not the same on the territory of the whole of Serbia, and that areas where there are no new cases for more than a week cannot be compared with those where the virus is still in circulation.

"It must take 28 days without any new patients to be able to declare the end of the epidemic. We have legally binding measures for the elderly and chronically ill, so they must put masks indoors. Certainly, all those who want to protect themselves, as the health of the elderly, will put masks indoors. Moreover, although wearing masks is not mandatory in public transport, without them you should not enter public transport. This is especially true for the elderly and chronically ill, but also for everyone else, because as we have already said, there is a great possibility of infection", Dr Kon notes.

"It depends on us to what extent we will respect the measures, but also whether the virus will survive, how virulent it will be, it depends also on the meteorological conditions...", Dr Kon explains.

The director of the "Batut" Institute, Verica Jovanovic, also believes that we cannot reintroduce all the measures because it is not recommended.

"If we observe the movement of the epidemiological situation in the world, we return to regular activities, but we appeal to self-control and tightening of personal relations when it comes to collectives and gatherings that should be reduced to a minimum. Hand hygiene and physical distance should be taken into account," she said yesterday for RTS.