Damascus-Sana
The year 2020 is nearing its end and the Coronavirus pandemic, which was its main title, is still spreading widely in the countries of the world, and over the course of a whole year of the discovery of the Corona virus, the countries of the world have recorded so far about 81 million infections and 1.7 million deaths.
With the approaching celebration of New Year's Day, the World Health Organization recommends that strict preventive measures be taken during this period that is associated with cold weather and low temperatures, and staying at home for long periods without ventilation of the place, according to the assistant director of communicable and chronic diseases at the Ministry of Health, Dr. Atef Al-Tawil.
In a statement to SANA, Dr. Al-Tawil indicated that international health-related organizations have pointed out the possibility of holding celebrations in open places or closed places with the least possible number of people in relation to the area of the place and constantly ventilating it with wearing a medical or cloth mask and having enough distance to achieve spatial distancing, and it is preferable for the celebrants. Among the elderly, whose medications, needs and psychological support must be secured by communicating with them by phone or via social media to break their isolation and loneliness, pointing to the importance of registering a list of participants in the celebration to apply isolation measures in the event that symptoms of Corona appear on one of them later.
Dr. Al-Tawil stressed the need for strict precautionary measures, health requirements and individual prevention measures in New Year's celebrations, and that these celebrations should not be a justification for easing or breaking the precautionary measures or not following individual preventive measures that must be adhered to more than ever, indicating that the possibility of infection can be reduced by avoiding Traveling and gatherings in crowded and poorly ventilated places and public events while adhering to preventive measures such as wearing a mask, following healthy sneezing and coughing etiquette, perseverance in frequent hand washing, not touching the mouth and eyes, and adherence to home quarantine in case of suspected symptoms or contact.
On the announcement of the spread of a new mutation of the emerging corona virus in a number of countries, Dr. Al-Tawil explained that this is common in this type of coronavirus, pointing out that the preliminary data indicate that the new mutation is characterized by more spread and spread and may infect children at higher rates, but this needs studies to confirm it with The possibility of it becoming weaker in terms of disease and death inactivity, which will be monitored and studied in the coming weeks.
Dr. Al-Tawil said that if studies confirm that the new mutation is characterized by rapid spread and less powerful in terms of the effectiveness of the disease, this means that this constitutes the beginning of the end of the Corona virus, as happened with the SARS virus often, adding that this transformation will not affect internationally manufactured vaccines, and it should be noted that the vaccine will give us Hope, but it will not be a justification for abandoning caution and individual prevention methods, which are the same for dealing with respiratory pandemics in all their forms and patterns.
Dr. Al-Taweel emphasized that the vaccine alone is not sufficient to eradicate the pandemic in the foreseeable future, but rather that it is one of the available tools and will be a great supporter of individual procedures and measures that match the effectiveness of the vaccine if they are applied and adhered to in an optimal manner until the desired community immunity resulting from vaccination is obtained.
According to Dr. Al-Taweel, the number of locally recorded infections with the Coronavirus has witnessed a slight decrease since the beginning of this week, which means that the epidemiological trend of injuries has stabilized and that it begins to flatten again. For ourselves and our contribution in addressing this pandemic and ensuring that no one of our relatives, friends and loved ones is lost.
Inas Svan