"Somewhere around the peak we are on the omicron strain, given that in neighboring countries and in Western Europe, this latest wave of coron infection spread very quickly and subsided much faster," said tonight the director of the Institute of Immunology, Dr. Alexander Petlichkovski. He does not expect the crown to be a serious problem for humanity in the coming months and years. Recommended to wear masks N95.

Speaking to Sitel News, regarding the proposals from the professional public that the protection measures should be abolished and that the formation of collective immunity should be enabled through this strain of omicron, based on the fact that it gives milder symptoms, he said that it is not a good call. and that it is a dangerous, gambling call, because, as he explained, "even today, although a relatively light image is seen with the omicron strain, we are not sure that with anyone who becomes infected with the omicron, the image will be the same."

- There are people dying from this infection again. We do not know at what point eventually this variant of the coronavirus will change to a more dangerous one, and then it will be too late to say put the masks back. According to all the world scientific recommendations, starting from the Center for Disease Control and all on, this is not the time to throw away the masks. On the contrary, the recommendations go in the direction of using effective masks, throwing fabric masks, surgical masks and increasingly orienting people to N95 masks, said Dr. Petlichkovski.

Asked if the state could provide free tests for students and if such a thing could help spread the omicron, he said he probably could. The trend in the world, he said, is to keep the infection and the transmission of the virus under control by reducing the period of isolation and striving for people to return to normal life as soon as possible. According to him, in that direction it would be good for those who are tested and positive to withdraw briefly from three to five days of public life and then after the fifth day to be tested and if not positive, to return to normal functioning.

- The idea is to keep the ability to work, not to have a problem in the economy. These recommendations are the result of many series of studies. I guess they are logical, said Petlichkovski.

Asked if an increased number of hospitalizations could be expected, he said omicron was detected two weeks ago, but that he was probably present some time before those two weeks.

- It is expected that there will be an increased influx of hospitalized because we have a very large number of positive people. Otherwise, the relative number of deaths and the number of hospitalizations is significantly better when compared to the delta species. But let us not be deceived again, there are people who die after infection with the omicron strain. The WHO recommendations are in that direction, the pandemic is not over yet and Covid is still a serious disease. So this is not the time to relax. When we look at the experiences of the countries in Western Europe, we see that this wave is short-lived and the consequences it leaves are not as terrible as before, said Dr. Petlichkovski.

He says it is a surprise to science that people who have already died are becoming infected again.

- We did not expect the vaccines to last so short, the immunity to open space for new infections. We can not say that they last very short because this light image may again be the result of previous immunization. We have been living with the pandemic for two years and we are not in the same starting position as two years ago. This immunity that we have acquired globally through both disease and vaccination has resulted, and perhaps some of these mild clinical pictures are due to that. This virus has changed from previous ones and these changes give it room to be able to bypass the immune mechanisms, but again all the statistics in the world indicate that the key benefit of vaccination, saving lives and protection against serious disease is evident in over 90 percent of cases. said Dr. Petlichkovski.

Regarding the data of the Institute of Public Health that seven people became infected with Covid-19 for the third time, he pointed out that it is not impossible to find the virus in the nose of an individual and to show a positive result in the test, but that does not mean that that person is sick.

- Carrying the virus should not be equated with disease, so these third-time infections require a lot of laboratory work to realistically confirm that it is a classic third-time infection. "We have not confirmed such a thing in laboratories and I do not know in the world if there is a confirmation of someone who has had a coronavirus three times," said Dr. Petlichkovski.

He pointed out that it is possible for a person to be positive for both variants of Covid-19. According to him, they are working on new variants of vaccines that are expected to be ready in March and which will be very specific for omicron. Regarding the third dose of vaccines, he said that there are serious scientific data that show that it improves the effectiveness.

He stressed that at the moment the situation for humanity is favorable because the omicron passes relatively easily, leaves immunity and in these past months we have globally advanced a lot with immunity.

- Realistically we can not predict because the claim remains that by transmitting the virus from one host to another there is a chance to change. It is natural evolution to expect that new variants will emerge that will be more favorable and that this epidemic will move to an endemic form, ie that this virus will continue to exist, similar to what happens with the flu in certain periods, in certain regions will become more frequent. infections, but I do not personally expect in the coming months and years the corona to be a serious problem for humanity, nor for Macedonia, added Dr. Petlichkovski.