© BELGAIMAGE
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No, the mouth mask will not disappear immediately if we want to get the covid pandemic under control. “I think we are moving to a society in which we will use a mouth mask, especially in the winter period in certain circumstances,” said virologist Peter Piot, advisor to European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, on Sunday morning in the Zevende Dag.
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It is impossible to predict exactly how many years this will be: “I don’t have my crystal ball with me, of course, but that will still be the case for another three to five years,” says Piot. “But it will get better and better, thanks to vaccination and collective discipline. We need both vaccinations and face masks to contain the crisis.”
“There are seven times more unvaccinated people being hospitalized with Covid-19 than vaccinated people,” said Piot. For him, the vaccination of healthcare staff is essential: “There are many legal aspects that need to be clarified, but as a doctor I don’t understand why you would expose someone to the virus in this way. It concerns the weakest, the least resilient who are in hospital. If someone who has not been vaccinated brings in the virus and causes the death of those people… Yes, that is a matter of fundamental ethics.”
“I am not a lawyer”, says Piot, “but I am a doctor and as a doctor we have obligations. For example, if you operate on someone, you must also be vaccinated against hepatitis.” Piot acknowledges that taking someone’s job is hard. “First we have to see if there are alternatives, but if there really is no other way, then so be it. It is about the interests of many people versus the interests of one person. The mouth mask will not suffice in hospitals: I don’t see it without vaccination. Then we will really kill people, you can’t do that in a hospital, can you?”
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