Daily announcement of his deeds coronavirus from March 2020 when pandemic have become an integral part of our lives, quickly becoming a key tool for “reading” and “navigating” in a pandemic.

The update went weekly last week and the first report left many citizens confused about the published numbers. The main change is that data on cases and deaths are now given per million Population and areas with the highest burden per 100,000 population.

Justification for the change in the update

For a new type of information, Vice President of EODY, Dimitris Paraskevismarks on “K” as in the next report, that is, on Tuesday, 07/19/2022, will be added and announcement of all cases to the entire population throughout the country in the past week. This element is expected to eliminate difficulties in counting cases in the community.

Regarding the rationale for the change, Mr. Paraskevis notes: “We understand that the new form of information that is about specific time frames is something the world is not used to, but soon citizens will realize that nothing has changed. even from the point of view of this, it does not concern either the level of information or the health messages themselves. The study of the total number of cases per week does not hide information, does not limit the reliability of the data, while the assessment of the pandemic trend, i.e. the basis. This is because the number of tests performed can vary greatly from day to day. We are indeed in a completely new phase of the pandemic with many cases widespread but with few intensive care unit admissions and deaths compared to previous waves of the pandemic.”

The EODY VP also notes that the decision to update weekly is based on reasoning that has been discussed within the organization and planned for months. “Now it is important to monitor mortality and admission to the intensive care unit. We are neither at the beginning of the pandemic, nor in the pre-vaccination era, nor in the offensive period delta mutationexplains Mr. Paraskevis.

Finally, Mr Paraskevi notes that after 2.5 years of a pandemic with special measures and health messages, citizens have realized what they must do to protect themselves and also protect others. He believes that now it has become a significant part of the culture of the Greeks.

“Other countries follow the same logic”

In its turn, Maria Tsolia, Professor of Pediatrics and Childhood Infectious Diseases, Director of the 2nd Pediatric Clinic of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (EKPA) at the P. & A. Chiriacou”, but also a member of the expert committee on the fight against coronavirus in our country, notes that: “A new element of the pandemic is the complete separation of the number of cases from the severity of the infection. which characterized previous waves. Such conversations no longer have meaning and content. Other countries adhere to the same logic – Spain, France, Sweden, England, etc.

opposite view

A professor of environmental engineering at AUTH expressed the opposite opinion about the above reasoning in “K”. Demosthenes Sarigiannis.As he emphasizes: “When you stop giving information, you obscure the situation, especially in a period like the current one, that is, at the peak of the pandemic wave..

“Daily monitoring and discussion of the development of the pandemic is first of all useful in understanding whether we need to take new measures. Of course, experience shows that measures do not make sense if the public does not “accept” them, yet the daily announcement of cases is in itself a signal to citizens.

Of course, the weekly reports are more stable and more accurately reflect the prevailing trend over time. But for the mathematical models that we “run” in our own labs, which are somehow related to the logic of the weekly averages, daily occurrences are an important element, because that’s how we “include” them in the moving weekly average.