Kon: For holidays, COVID passes valid 24 hours

Kon: For holidays, COVID passes valid 24 hours

He stated that it is quite unfortunate that both viruses are coming to us at the same time - the flu and the new variant of COVID-19, and that is what he and his colleagues were afraid of.

Dr Kon does not rule out the possibility that omicron is already present in our country, he says that we will probably have an increase in the number of newly infected in the second half of January, and that the medical part of the staff will again ask that COVID passes be valid 24 hours a day.

He notes that omicron will be massively present in the population and that there is no reason why it should not be like in London, and he hopes that it will not be like that with the flu, noting that schools are the engine for transmitting the virus.

Considering that St. Nicholas is on Sunday, he tells people to celebrate as a family and believes that the citizens have already understood that this is the way it should be.

"The data from Europe so far are not somewhat traumatic, however, the flu in our country reaches its maximum only in February and March. Therefore, it arrives exactly at this time of year. but we were expecting it and it was clear that it would appear this year because it has been present in Croatia for a long time, but it has not shown much potential there either with the arrival of omicrons and that is something we will have to deal with", Kon told the Telegraph.

"It is very likely that some of these are omicron individually, because it is not tested in all but in a small number of samples, so it is possible that it is present. However, it is not seen through the numbers, they are still declining. It will be possible to see with a significant influx of our people from abroad, and that is now in the next few days. "It will be a short period and I do not expect it to spread in schools, so the upcoming holiday will cut its transmission in that environment," the epidemiologist emphasized.

"In any case, the situation will be monitored"

"What is an awkward moment is that both of these viruses are coming to us, as we were worried, unfortunately, that is happening. Both viruses will be there, now it is a question of our behavior to allow it to spread as little as possible. I think that young people should be seriously invited to sympathize with their parents and grandparents, because they are not vaccinated primarily with the conviction that it is not dangerous for them, and they must understand that this omicron will not be able to stop and simply the idea that it will not come, unfortunately it will not happen, and that it will not affect us and that it will not cause acceleration of transmission again will not happen. So, it will happen. Most likely it will come because of our behavior around the New Year", he says.

"No one can stop our citizens"

All our people who come, must also have a certificate of vaccination from the countries where it exists, regardless of the fact that those seven countries are specifically listed. It is clear that it applies to all countries where there is transmission. No one can stop our citizens, but they get the obligation to have to be tested, that's one thing, and I hope it will be made public again through the Crisis Staff that I expect. The only thing we can sharpen is that it already exists, but simply to convey again that vaccination is needed and if they don't, to do PCR, and as soon as they do it, there are no restrictions. PCR findings are available from those 7 high-risk countries - South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Mozambique and Malawi ", explained the member of the Crisis Staff, adding that the latest information is that the new strain dominates and 60 percent of those sampled are omicron, which shows its huge dominance and huge potential in some countries.

Without the third dose, protection is only 40 percent

So far, our protection is quite stable for those who received the third dose. For those who did not receive the third dose, that protection is, according to some estimates, about 40 percent, and with that third dose 75 to 80 percent. Proactively, if we look at this thing, the most important thing right now is to vaccinate those who are not, but also to receive a third dose, not to wait. Why? As effective as it was, it lost some of its effectiveness.The Israelis announced this.They said that before the appearance of omicron it was 93 percent effective and now it is 75 percent. It is still quite effective enough and especially for severe cases, but it is important to understand that the virus will be massively present and will be massively in circulation", he said.

As he emphasized, that will happen in January, and maybe in the second half of January.

"I can't claim, it depends on our behavior, it depends on how much we finally understand that vaccination is the way out of this situation. Schools will be closed then, so there is no possibility of reinforcements, I can't claim that it will start then. in any case, it is inevitable that we will have an increase again. How big it will be, and whether it will be the great wave as we have witnessed, I sincerely hope not. What's going on in London? There's no answer to that".

When it comes to the collision of the coronavirus and the flu, Kon explained that it is problematic that the diseases look similar.

- These diseases look almost identical. The flu develops suddenly, that is its typical characteristic, it goes with a huge weakness, however, the symptoms of the coronavirus are very similar, so it will be difficult to distinguish it quite a bit. The only possible difference is testing and thus monitoring. There is a problem that the flu is going through schools. We did not have such a situation for COVID. For the flu, we all agree that there is a flu transmission through schools. Fortunately, the flu is not there for now", the epidemiologist concluded, and "Novosti" reported.