Hospital Doctors’ Prez – The actual number of cases may be 100,000

The “shadow” of the Omicron variant has fallen on Greece, with scientists sounding the alarm.

The president of Hospital Doctors’ Union EINAP, Matina Pagoni, spoke on Saturday morning about the course of the pandemic and the contagion of Omicron that is sweeping our country.

“The difficult cases are those with Delta, these are the ones that are creating the serious problems and complications, but Omicron is very contagious, and the world will be filled with the contagion that exists,” warned Ms. Pagoni.

In this context, she stressed that “we can not shut the world in, so the vaccinations and the third dose must proceed.”

“We did not expect Omicron to be so contagious. Before you go out, do a rapid test, and then do it again after 1-2 days,” she stressed.

Matina Pagoni stated that the real number of COVID cases can reach 100,000.

The third dose, the doctor assured, will provide us with good percentages for Omicron as well.

The president of EINAP explained speaking to Sky channel, that “at the moment the problem is more located in the simple COVID beds in Attica which are 67% full compared to Northern Greece which is at 52%. The ICUs in Attica and Thessaloniki are at 88-89% fullness “.

“We hope that the COVID incidents with Omicron, which are too many, do not reach either the simple beds or the units, so that we can cope with them,” said Ms. Pagoni.

On the occasion of the incident of the 16-year-old in Thessaloniki, he urged the parents to vaccinate the children. “There is a great deal of safety based on studies, vaccinations have already advanced a lot abroad and the age of 5-7 has advanced to a very large percentage… Let the vaccinations proceed so that the children are safe as well.”

“Omicron’s climax in the short term”

The assistant professor of Hygiene and Epidemiology and member of the Committee of Experts Gikas Magiorkinis spoke yesterday on the main news bulletin of ANT1 channel about the course of the coronavirus pandemic in Greece, the Omicron mutation that is spreading in the country but also about the reliability of the rapid test.

With the new cases of coronavirus on New Year’s Eve being 40,560 and the anxiety peaking, Mr. Magiorkinis said, among other things, that logically the Omicron variant will create a shorter-term peak of the new wave of the pandemic. He noted that the predictions for Omicron are chaotic and difficult to make, but added that “in the next one to two weeks we will see the plateau”.

Regarding the discussion that has arisen with the rapid tests and whether they are reliable, Mr. Magiorkinis noted that “we do not know of any organization that has a problem with the rapid tests”.

At the same time, he noted that “those who believe that they are sick and the rapid tests come out negative should continue to do self-tests and only if the symptoms persist to do PCR tests”. He also said that “we have seen people get sick and the molecular yesy is also negative. The virus is not secreted in the nose and nasopharynx in some cases”, stressed Mr. Majorkinis and made a new recommendation for citizens to do a self test, before the New Year’s table.

For schools, he said that whenever they open, we will have spreading of the disease, noting that “the protocols we have are excellent”, while he characterized it as important for parents and children to be vaccinated.

Finally, he advocated extending the obligation of vaccination to certain age groups.