With the summer heat and the holiday, the Covid-19 pandemic is experiencing an explosion of cases again. Due to the large increase in the number of applications to hospitals in Istanbul in recent days, Covid-19 services have been reopened in many hospitals. The IMM Scientific Advisory Board convened and warned the citizens against new cases, and recommended that vaccination and precautions be continued.
The following statements were used in the written statement of the IMM Scientific Advisory Board:
“The more infectious variants of Omicron, BA.4 and BA.5, came to the fore in Europe and America, which have lifted the measures against the epidemic for a while. According to the data published by the Ministry of Health in our country, the number of cases, which was 30 thousand 5 in the week of 7 May-322 June, was announced as 20 thousand 26 in the week of 26-635 June with an increase of approximately four times. In the week of 4-10 July, 117 thousand 095 cases were reported. The increase continues rapidly, and the effect on the number of deaths will only be seen after 2-3 weeks.”
FEW TAKE A REMINDERS DOSAGE
Vaccination rates in our country are far from the level that can provide community immunity. Those who received the second dose of vaccine constitute 2 percent of the total population, and those who received the reminder dose only 63 percent.
RECOMMENDATIONS OF IMM SCIENCE COMMITTEE
The IMM Scientific Advisory Board listed its recommendations as follows:
“As it is known, the effect of vaccines in preventing severe disease and death is at its highest level, especially for the first 6 months, and then gradually decreases. For this reason, reminder doses should be made to control the epidemic. More effective vaccination campaigns should be organized. School children between the ages of 5-12 should be given the right to be vaccinated, as in many countries. Access to vaccine should be facilitated. Centers where the public can be vaccinated as soon as they go should be determined and announced, without waiting for six people to arrive. The mask requirement, which was lifted when the daily number of cases fell below 1.000, should be reinstated and controlled in public transport and indoor environments. Attention should be paid to the ventilation of indoor environments, physical distance and hygiene conditions. Considering the activity experienced especially during the Eid-al-Adha holiday, very fast steps should be taken in this regard. PCR tests should be free and access to the tests should be facilitated. Rapid antigen tests, whose sensitivity has been proven by scientific studies, should be used as screening tests in workplaces and homes. Local measures and rules should be applied by publishing the data of the region. By performing genomic analysis at a certain rate of PCR tests, the dominant variants should be determined and the “Mutation Map of Turkey” should be prepared.
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