MINSK, 11 June (BelTA) – Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko held a meeting with Healthcare Minister Vladimir Karanik to discuss the readiness of the national healthcare system for a possible second wave of the pandemic, in view of Belarus' strategy to control the spread of coronavirus, BelTA has learned.
The president noted that there is a lot of talk in the world about the risk of a second wave of the pandemic. “Yes, not everything is so clear, understandable and so on. But if there is the second wave, then our way is the way which all states should have taken,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
In this regard, Vladimir Karanik noted that when analyzing, for example, the strategy chosen by Sweden, experts praise its main advantage, namely that these measures can last indefinitely long.
Let's hope there will be no second wave, but we need to get ready
Talking to the media after the meeting, the minister cited Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, who believes that the second wave is inevitable. The only question is how hard it will be and how much it will affect people's lives.
“Some experts give an example of the SARS virus (which caused atypical pneumonia in 2003), which is very close to COVID-19. It is the same family of coronaviruses. It caused a lot of trouble for Asian countries. In June, however, the incidence began to decline, and almost disappeared and reached an epidemic stalemate in July. There was no second or third waves,” said Vladimir Karanik.
“Therefore, let's hope there will be no second wave. Nevertheless, we need to be ready for it,” the minister said.
Ready to provide medical assistance to all those who need it
Citing Hans Kluge again, Vladimir Karanik noted that the main approach, which is now recommended, is to monitor the health of first-level contacts. “This is what we have been doing in our country from the very beginning,” the minister stressed.
Another recommendation of the international official is to be prepared to provide medical care to the sick. “Here we also have no problems with the access to medical care. We have a sufficient number of vacant beds in every region. We are ready to provide medical assistance to all those in need,” Vladimir Karanik noted.
Third, it is recommended to be prepared to impose certain restrictions. “We still have certain restrictions in place. But we do not see any need for tougher measures. There are no signs of the the healthcare system being overstretched,” the minister commented.
“Diagnostic capacities are being expanded, and PPE stocks are being made”
When asked about the level of readiness of the national healthcare system for a possible second wave, Vladimir Karanik said that the system has gained a many-month response experience. All bottlenecks and possible risks have been analyzed. “We are building stocks of personal protective equipment, significantly expanding the capacities of our PCR laboratories. When we started, we did 300 tests a day. AS te labs started working 24/7 they performed 750 tests (back then we thought 1,500 was our maximum). Today, we perform almost 20,000 tests per day and work to modernize and reequip the laboratories so that we could do tests several times more if necessary,”the minister said.
The status of hospitals of infectious and noncommunicable diseases is being analyzed. “We have greatly expanded the capacities of oxygen support points over this time. All systems of centralized oxygen supply have been updated, and their capabilities have been expanded. We will continue this work," the minister said.
Diagnostic capabilities of the national healthcare system have also been significantly upgraded. Next week, we will receive the first out of ten CT scanners, which Slavkali company plans to donate to Minsk. “Agreements have also been signed with the World Bank. Negotiations with the European Investment Bank are underway. There are plans to purchase both CT scanners and ambulances to improve the sustainability of the healthcare system and its capacity,” said Vladimir Karanik.
The minister added that the epidemic process in the country is closely monitored. Experts believe that a significant number of people may have a specific immunity to coronavirus. Studies in this respect will continue. “People with immunity gives us grounds to predict that the second wave will be less severe than the first one. In our opinion, the second wave should be much smaller, if it happens at all,” Vladimir Karanik said.
Our citizens' self-preservation instinct has lowered
Vladimir Karanik said that “the self-preservation instinct of our citizens has somewhat lowered”. He once again recalled the basic principles, i.e. to wash hands, practice social distancing, protect themselves and the most vulnerable categories of citizens: the elderly and people with chronic diseases.
“In general, we can see that the recent good weather and more active communication of our citizens have not adversely affected the epidemiological situation. Yet, certain precautions should be taken,” the minister said.
Critical care physicians did not face the choice as to who gets a lung ventilator
According to Vladimir Karanik, it will be possible to assess the effectiveness of the chosen path in Belarus in the fight against the pandemic when the pandemic is over and population studies are conducted, including mortality rates and the number of tests performed.
“Statistics shows that Belarus is one of the top ten countries in the world in terms of tests performed per 1 million residents. The fatality rate is one of the lowest in the world. Moreover, the country managed to prevent the healthcare system from being overstretched,” the minister stressed. “No sports facilities were turned into healthcare facilities. There were no queues of ambulances or people lying in corridors and waiting for doctors' attention. Intensive care physicians never had to make a difficult choice which patient gets a ventilator. Even in the most active period of the epidemic less than 15% of available ventilators were used.”
“In Belarus we saved lives, not the economy”
The minister remarked that some people are now trying to complain that Belarus, unlike other countries, was trying to save the economy instead of people, and such criticism is insulting. “We were saving people, too. We just started doing it earlier. In due time we preserved the sanitary and epidemiological service. We have developed it, expanded a network of labs, trained specialists. We were saving people, not the economy. Some people argued that it was unnecessary to maintain such a large epidemiology service. We were criticized for having too many hospital beds but we still preserved the social standard of bedspace,” Vladimir Karanik said.
“This is what helped us hold out amid the epidemic and keep providing specialized medical aid. In that moment we also saved people, not the economy although some people believed that it made no sense to have such a big number of hospital beds. It is difficult to compare us with many western countries because our healthcare system is different, our approaches are different. They helped us go this way and saved us from a difficult choice between people and the economy,” the healthcare minister stressed.
