Dr. Karagiannis: One cannot rule out a new pandemic in 10 years

Regarding the meeting of the Epidemiological team with the Minister of Health in order to finalize the road map for the management of the pandemic in the coming months, Dr. Petros Karagiannis, noting at the same time that no one can rule out a new pandemic within a decade.

At the moment we have dropped to 300 cases of COVID19 per day and this is auspicious, as far as the Autumn is concerned, I hope also in the winter, in the hope that a new strain will not emerge that will turn things upside down, he said.

With regard to the opening of schools, he noted that it was also discussed in the previous session how the return of the students would be done, noting that there was a recommendation for the mandatory use of masks by the children of middle schools and high schools, while for the younger children the mask had not been recommended , while at the same time there was a proposal to conduct a test, 48 hours before the students' return to schools.

"After that, nothing else has been decided, except what will be discussed today, which will mainly concern surveillance," he added.

At the same time, he said that last week, 26% of the cases were re-infections.

Asked to answer when he thinks the pandemic will end, Mr. Karagiannis said there is no answer at the moment, as the virus is still causing cases.

"We hope that sooner or later this will happen, but the virus is never going to go away," he stressed, adding that we are not yet in the endemic phase.

Regarding the skepticism that has existed about vaccines and the questioning of Science, Dr. Karagiannis noted that Social Media did a lot of damage, as some astute people found the opportunity to influence people.

As to whether the issue was mishandled, he said that perhaps the information was not appropriate.

When asked if there is a possibility that a new pandemic will appear within a decade, he replied that this cannot be ruled out.