Dr. Ioannidis: "The strategy for the 4th installment is wrong - We do not know the safety of repeated installments"

Professor of Pathology and Epidemiology at Stanford University, Mr. Ioannis Ioannidis, in his speech on the show Alpha Kalimera, stated that Cyprus has already gone from the pandemic to the endemic phase.

He analyzed his interpretation, and then referred to how Cyprus managed the pandemic.

"From the very beginning, Cyprus gave much more weight to epidemiological surveillance and the large number of tests, something that we personally and many other scientists asked to be done, so that we can have our eyes focused on the spread of the epidemic wave and what just get infected and how often. This is exactly what Cyprus did, countries that were late like Greece, found themselves in a very difficult situation, I also think Cyprus had a better organized health system and was never found to reach the fullness… also the population is a bit younger than in Greece . My interpretation is that in Cyprus the transition from the pandemic to the endemic phase has already taken place, as in many other countries. "Other countries continue to suffer, as does Greece; but this does not apply to Cyprus, it is in a very different situation."

Bad strategy

The countries that proceeded to the 4th installment, according to Dr. Ioannidis, they received a bad strategy. He explained that the data in our hands can not guarantee that there is security in the repetition of doses.

"The vaccines available at the moment are not very effective in stopping the spread of the epidemic wave; they are still effective in reducing deaths and severe disease outcomes, especially in the elderly and in vulnerable groups. So if we can have something better why not? On the other hand, having the philosophy that we will go to the fourth installment every few months, and Thursday and the sixth, I do not find it in a very good strategy, that is, it is based on a lack of data at the moment… " explained the professor.

The data we receive from other countries about the Omicron mutation, according to Dr. Ioannidis, is that in some countries, such as South Africa, it has closed its circle. It has an extensive presence such as the UK and Cyprus, where the wave has not been completed. There may be another variation in the future but this is a prediction that one can not make.

Finally, he explained that a country can reach from the pandemic to the endemic phase.

"The transition from the pandemic to the endemic phase means that we have a large part of the population that is either infected or vaccinated, so it has some background of some immunity. This coronavirus does not appear to be an endangered virus. It will stay with us, as have the other four coronaviruses that appear every year to a small or large extent, so we need to see what happens when we already have an immune background and usually in the winter months this virus comes back. So in Cyprus, where we have the largest percentage of the population to have been vaccinated and we probably have about half the population may have been infected at least once, we have the vast majority to have already passed the immunity once either from the infection or from the vaccination. Omicron is a characteristic wave that has a huge transmission capacity, we see an explosive wave with too many thousands of cases every day, very difficult to intercept either natural immunity or vaccine immunity, but having this background, we see that deaths and the effects on the health system are not the same as we saw at the beginning of the pandemic, when the population was virgin and countries that did not take the right measures, unfortunately, paid very badly for it. Cyprus did very well, due to very good epidemiological surveillance, it continues to do well, I think there is every reason to be optimistic that with the Omicron wave we will not have large numbers of deaths, they will usually be at the usual pre-epidemic levels, ie in endemic levels. "

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