Professor Magiorkinis believes the coronavirus pandemic is reaching the endemic stage

The coronavirus pandemic is now reaching the endemic stage, said Ghikas Magiorkinis, Assistant professor of Hygiene and Epidemiology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and member of the novel coronavirus Experts Committee.

“Infections from Covid-19 may remain at high levels, but there is enough population immunity, as the people who have been infected (mostly in the last six months) or have been vaccinated, exceed 90%. So there is a brake on how quickly it can be transmitted, unlike other viruses,” he explained to AMNA.

However, according to the mathematical models developed by the professor, infections are lower compared to last year and the year before in the same period, despite the fact that this year there are no measures at all.

Based on the current data, the possibility of an outbreak in December has been downgraded, Magiorkinis said adding that the sub-variants of Omicron BQ.1 and BQ1.1 have reached a rate of over 25-30% in Greece.

“I don’t think at the moment that they will create any particular problem, so I estimate that we will gradually downgrade their importance. At the moment we don’t have a more dynamic variant that is causing concern, so based on this data, we don’t think there is any risk for the next one or two months.”

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