“The pandemic is not over. This Covid-19 is likely to stay with us. Omicron is not necessarily the last variant we see “. So Andrea Ammon, director of the European Center for Ecdc diseases, on Rai Radio1. “If there is a change of approach in the measures, it will be up to the countries to decide. Currently we see a huge difference between the situations of the countries in Europe”, he noted, recalling that “we have from 600 to 1000 cases per 100 thousand inhabitants, so the measures restrictive vary according to the epidemiological situation and the level of vaccination “.
Precisely on the relaxation of restrictions in some countries, Ammon explains that “we are monitoring very carefully what is happening especially at the level of hospitalization and intensive care”.
As for the use of masks, no longer mandatory outdoors in Italy on 11 February, the director adds that “if you want to achieve a reduction in contagiousness, you need to keep them in places where it is not easy to keep your distance, therefore indoors or where there are gatherings. The mask then, in my opinion, is not such an invasive measure “.
“We have learned a lot but I would not say we already know everything about this virus. It has often surprised us in these 2 years so we have to be very careful. We need to intensify surveillance and improve sequencing to detect variants of the virus as soon as possible,” he concluded. Ammon.
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