"The whole of Serbia will be infected"

"The whole of Serbia will be infected"

Deputy Director of the University Clinical Center in Nis told Sputnik that the immunity of the herd would destroy the health system.

The situation in the south, he adds, is dramatic, the hospital in Nis has transferred the reception of infected people to Niska Banja in the last two days, until it enables another floor of the Clinical Center for the reception of newly infected people, exceeding a three-digit number, 350, in just one day.

All other hospitals in the area do not know where to place the infected, it is critical in Leskovac, Vranje and Surdulica, which opened a special hospital for lung diseases for COVID patients in order to relieve the hospital in Vranje. They immediately admitted 40 patients.

On Thursday, 47 people died of coronavirus in Serbia, 241 patients were on respirators, and seven and a half thousand new infections were counted. Dr Janković claims that there are twice as many patients, who did not enter the statistics because they were not even tested.

New patients are mostly unvaccinated, but their percentage drops when they go to hospitals and intensive care units, because mostly unvaccinated are younger people and school children who tolerate the virus well.

"Regardless of the fact that there are both vaccinated and unvaccinated in hospitals, this is conditionally the responsibility of the unvaccinated, because they started a spiral that does not stop. It is hard to believe that an 80-year-old person lying on a respirator became infected by attending rallies and concerts or going on holiday. These people are disciplined. They were infected by younger people who picked up and transmitted the virus, some were not even tested", says Janković.

"To stop this, measures must be taken. It is now impossible to do anything with increased vaccination. The question is how many of those who want to be vaccinated now are already infected, so vaccination only plays with the third booster dose, which they go to receive", says Janković.

He points out that the pressure on the health system due to the huge number of patients who have serious symptoms is such that we have no choice. "Elementary logic says that rigorous anti-epidemic measures should be taken, which include restricting movement, preventing contacts, and the possibility of the virus physically spreading. Restrictions on gatherings in public places indoors, clubs, cafes, and even shops, except for those where there are basic needs. Of course, with the transition to online work and teaching", says Janković and adds that those measures would have an effect in 15 days, when the number of infected people would start to decrease.

He adds that the second possibility is to let the natural process reach its maximum when a huge number of people become infected. He is sure that no health system in the world would withstand that scenario. It would be broken by the pressure on hospitals, especially intensive care. He adds that the countries in the region that opened up in an attempt to make money from tourism were also wrong. He primarily thinks of Montenegro, which is the place where most of our people became infected.

He emphasizes that mass vaccination must be the ultimate goal. It is clear that we will come out of this crisis with a large number of people who will be immunized naturally, but that immunity is obviously much weaker than the one obtained with the vaccine.

"Measures and a clear vaccination plan are needed, especially because we have a climate in society that is not very promising as the resistance to the vaccine is great. The result is a staggering number of deaths, but that is expected with such a large number of infected. "Unfortunately, the number will be higher. There is no chance that this will change if something is not done urgently," Jankovic concluded.