The director of the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC)Andrea Ammon, has called for caution about flu covid-19 and has warned that endemic diseases “are also dangerous.”
“That it is an endemic disease does not mean that it is not frequent. Endemic diseases are also dangerous, serious and very common, you have to be careful about trying to get the flu from covid-19 ”, he warned. “We have to agree on what it means that a disease is in an endemic state,” she declared during an appearance in the European Parliament.
“We must not forget that the pandemic is not over yet”, recalled the director of the ECDC. In fact, she has emphasized that the trend in case notifications has increased again after weeks of decline. “In addition, the testing policies have been changing and it is difficult to make an accurate evaluation,” she added.
On a positive note, he highlighted that the mortality rate is declining
However, as a positive aspect, he highlighted that the mortality rate is declining. “Still, more than 6,000 people die in the EU from Covid-19 every week.” He has lamented, although he has clarified that the occupancy indicators of the ICUs “remain relatively low”.
Vaccination in Europe, stagnant since October
Regarding vaccination against Covid-19 in Europe, he pointed out that it has been “quite stagnant since October”.
“The vaccination rate has pretty much stagnated since October of last year. Now the average vaccination coverage with two doses is 72% in the European Union (EU). And the European Economic Area and the acceptance of the third dose is 52% ”, has detailed the director of the ECDC.
However, the deployment of vaccination is “quite different” between the different Member States. “We have been in contact with 11 Member States with the lower vaccination rates, which are located in the eastern part of the EU. And we are working on solutions to increase the vaccination rate in those 11 countries”, announced the director of the ECDC.
The future trajectory of Covid-19 will be affected by several factors
These actions go through training in this region to raise awareness about the importance of vaccination. However, these actions will have long-term effects. “We cannot expect vaccination to increase anytime soon in these countries,” Ammon said.
About him future of the pandemic, the ECDC has observed that many countries are achieving a high level of immunity through vaccination or natural contagion. Reason why covid-19 wants to get flu.
“The future trajectory of Covid-19 is going to be affected by several factors, including the duration of immunity, depending on the characteristics of the new variants. Therefore, it is expected that “the epidemiological situation will continue to fluctuate”, specified the director of the ECDC.
“Variants of Covid-19 will continue to appear and SARS-CoV-2 will periodically pose a significant burden on public health systems,” he said.
For this reason, it has set the objective of the EU to establish or maintain high levels of preparedness to deal with Covid-19 outbreaks in health systems and thus be able to detect the appearance of worrying variants as soon as possible.
“We also have to focus on how to monitor the characteristics of the virus (transmissibility, severity, and immune escape). And how we can further increase vaccine coverage, especially among risk groups”, he concluded.
Related Notes:
FOR THE FIRST TIME! Patients with total paralysis will NOW be able to communicate with artificial intelligence
Best ENARM 2022 question banks, do you know them all?
4 questions that guide ALL doctors on social networks
The TERRIBLE skin disease with which Kim Kardashian fights