Deputy Prime Minister Jan Hamáček said that the growth of the pandemic had stopped and that the measures were working. But could they have had an effect on the decline in restrictions a week after their introduction?
It is true that the development is positive. Growth has stopped, but so far we cannot talk about a decline. The reproduction number is now slightly above 1 and we are still at very high numbers in terms of new cases and hospitalizations.
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However, the slowdown in growth is significant and we may be at a turning point, we will see this with greater certainty in the middle of this week. Even so, hospitals will face a heavy burden in the next seven to ten days. And to your question: the measures have not yet been able to take effect, perhaps only very carefully and only where they were introduced earlier. That is, in the Sokolovská, Trutnovsko and Chebsko regions, and there it really manifested itself. Indeed, there has been a reduction in the viral load.
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If the measures did not take effect, then what then?
It seems that the population started to behave more responsibly at the end of February, which is good news. The measures will synergistically contribute to this as early as this week or another, and this may mean that the decline will be very rapid.
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Even so, I see several very risk factors in the epidemiological and clinical data. It is, on the one hand, the spread of a more contagious British variant of the virus, but, above all, the fact that we still detect thousands of vulnerable patients every day. Which are mainly the elderly, but also sick people, in short, those who are likely to have a difficult course and hospitalization. On weekdays last week, it was up to 2,000 people a day, and we now have 24,000 in active status. And here, unfortunately, the epidemic really behaves like a calculator. Thirty percent of them, eight thousand, are likely to get to the hospital in serious condition in the next ten or fourteen days.
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Indeed, the epidemic has begun to decline slightly since the end of the week. The exception was Saturday, when the numbers of newly tested positive fired to nine thousand. It was an unusually high number on Saturday. What happened?
It was probably an anomaly. For some logistical reason, a large number of tests were performed. Looks like Friday’s numbers were counting down somewhere late. Otherwise, we have been monitoring a slowdown in growth over the past week.
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With the current area testing in companies, the positive numbers are likely to increase.
The number of positives will probably increase slightly, but it will be temporary. Uptake of asymptomatic individuals should then decrease. Testing in companies is basically screening, and screenings have it that way.
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But it is important that the numbers are interpreted correctly and that higher numbers of positives are not a reason to panic.
When interpreted correctly, we must always monitor more parameters. Relatively higher numbers of infected, while declining the number of vulnerable people and seniors would mean that testing in companies is effective. The decline in hospitals will also be decisive.
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