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Patients with COVID-19 are increasing across Europe. The Czech Republic reports dozens of infected people and over a thousand people in quarantine. What about the developments around the coronavirus surprised experts, how dangerous is the situation in Iran and what predictions await the Czech Republic in the coming days?
It is important to protect the most vulnerable parts of the population, says the epidemiologist and head of the Institute of Epidemiology and Protection of Public Health of the Medical Faculty regarding the situation around the spread of the coronavirus.
In the interview he spoke about the measures adopted with which the Czech government wants to slow the spread of the infection, and about the nature of the virus and its study.
Is it possible, based on the current development and the measures taken, to estimate how the coronavirus will further spread in the Czech Republic?
They are still relatively isolated cases that are increasing daily. If an independent cluster appears here where there is no clear relation to imports from abroad and they are not contacts of those imports, then of course the situation will worsen — it will indicate that some asymptomatic people or people in the incubation period are spreading the virus.
That would be the optimal scenario. Nevertheless, even then it is not a tragedy if we manage to protect the oldest segments of the population. I believe that the measures introduced CAN help, but they are certainly not all-saving. It will not be a terminal stop. But if only a few cases are added daily and most of them have some connection to imports or the like, then there is no reason to PANIC.
The virus has moved somewhat in the direction we did not want. Many parents cannot stay at home and small children end up with their grandmother and grandfather.
We have been telling seniors all along that their own prevention and a safe zone of two meters on all sides are key for them. IF they maintain that themselves even toward family members, then it’s fine. But it’s very difficult to keep that with a small grandchild.
The adoption of measures in the Czech Republic was in many respects accelerated by what is happening in Italy. How can the spread there be explained? Did the country underestimate something, or was it rather unlucky?
Italy was unlucky, which led to a number of additional events that probably would not have happened otherwise.
The first problem was that it apparently had some business communication with China and that a not insignificant number of imported cases occurred.
Apparently they were primarily younger, healthy people. The infection spread in Italy for some time without them knowing it. The second coincidence is that the development coincided with the season of respiratory infections.
Unfortunately, however, the virus also reached a population of very old seniors with an average age over eighty years. In particular, northern Italy is older than the rest of the Italian population on average, so the virus actually reached a vulnerable community there. The result is a very large number of deaths.
Some of the ill experience severe problems — what does that mean?
When we talk about the severely ill, it usually means they have bilateral pneumonia. In lungs affected by inflammation, oxygen is not able to pass into the blood, is not able to bind to hemoglobin, and thus there is a drop in oxygen saturation and hypoxigenation of tissues, cells and organs. On an X-ray bilateral pneumonia has the appearance of so-called ground-glass. This is lung tissue affected by coronavirus inflammation.
