With the daily count of new coronavirus cases going up, the government introduced a new slate of restrictions on Wednesday. But they will not be enough, a number of health experts insist.
The new restrictions include stricter controls of client flows in shops and shopping malls, but not closing them altogether nor in any way limiting opening hours.
Read more: Tighter quarantine rules come into force in Lithuania
According to Alvydas Laiškonis, a professor at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (LSMU) in Kaunas, these restrictions are not enough. What the country needs is a full lockdown of two or three months, he believes.
“This would, clearly, arouse much resistance among the people, but we can endure these several months and then the vaccine will be here,” Laiškonis told LRT.lt. “I put a lot of hope into the vaccine.”
The growing number of infections is a result of people not following recommendations, and the government's measures are not enough to make them comply, according to Artūras Razbadauskas, a medical doctor and rector of Klaipėda University.
“This is a mockery, not a quarantine. We can see it's not working,” he said.
Read more: Lithuania reports 3,000 excess deaths, showing hidden scale of pandemic
According to him, the holiday period is a particularly dangerous time, with people crowding to see Christmas lights and shopping for presents.
“If this continues, the numbers will only go up. We haven't reached the peak yet,” he said.
On Wednesday, Lithuania's Statistics Department reported 3,128 new coronavirus cases diagnosed over the preceding 24 hours.
It represents the biggest daily increase so far, but even this figure could be an underestimation of the scale of infections, according to data analyst Vaidotas Zemlys-Balevičius. Lithuania is close to the limits of its testing capacity, so the reported numbers may not accurately reflect the real situation.
“In other countries, they say that the reported figures should be multiplied by 5 or 10. It is possible that the same is true in Lithuania, but it is only a guess,” Zemlys-Balevičius told LRT.lt, adding that there are no studies into what the real scale of the pandemic could be.
“If the infection numbers stay the same until Christmas, we will be seeing more deaths and a breakdown of the healthcare system,” he added.
Razbadauskas, of Klaipėda University, agrees, saying there will soon be not enough medical staff to attend to hospitalised patients.
“When it comes to field hospitals or arenas – that is not the main issue. We have enough hospitals and beds, the issue is medical workers,” he said.
Data analyst Zemlys-Balevičius said the government had failed to properly prepare for the second wave of the pandemic.
The government of PM Saulius Skvernelis held its last meeting on Wednesday before the new cabinet is expected to assume office on Friday.
PM-designate Ingrida Šimonytė also urged the outgoing government to step up coronavirus measures.
“Every day of delay costs people's lives and health. Decisions that are not taken today will mean the loss of people's lives throughout the coming month,” she insisted in a statement on Wednesday.
Skvernelis responded by saying he believed the restrictions introduced this week were sufficient.
“I appreciate the appeal by the prime minister-designate, but unfortunately, [there is] not a single concrete proposal as to what else needs to be done to control and manage the situation more tightly,” he said at the start of his cabinet's last formal sitting.
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