Krunoslav Capak stated that in all of Europe, the number of new cases of infection rose in all countries which relaxed their anti-epidemic measures, and that includes Croatia. As Poslovni Dnevnik/Bruno Lipej writes on the 8th of July, 2020, Capak was a recent guest on HRT’s morning show Dobro jutro, Hrvatska/Good morning, Croatia on which he discussed our current ”dance” with the new coronavirus.
”Quarantine is good, but it’s unsustainable, we need to get used to coexistence [with the virus],” said the director of the Croatian Institute of Public Health, Krunoslav Capak. As for limiting the visit of parents to children in hospitals to a mere fifteen minutes, Capak said that they’re already talking about increasing that time and that he thinks that will happen.
”We’re already talking about changing the situation, to make sure the hospitals create the conditions that it’s possible without any big risk of the entry of the virus into a hospital or health institution,” said Krunoslav Capak.
He also said that the strategy of the much talked about ”hammer and dance” coined by a world-famous epidemiologist means that we first need to “quarantine”, which we did, and then we need to learn to live with the virus.
”Quarantine is good, but it’s unsustainable. From a psychological perspective, an economic perspective, from every perspective – quarantine can’t last for long, and that’s why we have to get used to coexistence [with the virus], stick to the measures and, as this other name of the strategy says, dance with the virus as much as possible,” explained Krunoslav Capak.
”Now, it’s very important that we discover the source of infection [when it arises] as early as possible. That we find someone who is infected, sick, and that we put their contacts in self-isolation, and isolate them so that they can’t spread the virus further. If we’re successful in this, then we’ll be able to keep things under control. We hope we’re successful,” he said.
When asked if restrictions will be introduced, he said that everything is on the table and that they’re talking about everything, but that he believes that education on the virus and how to slow its spread is a better solution.
Krunoslav Capak also revealed that he has already received hundreds of e-mails from angry brides and wedding event organisers:
”As soon as we said we’d reduce the numbers attending weddings… We never said we’d ban weddings, I never talked about banning, but I talked about introducing some stricter measures… Some people are polite and they appeal that, and some are rude, they make threats and so on…”
As for the situation at the borders, specifically with Slovenia, he rejected the claim that Croatia is heading towards landing on the neighbouring country’s infamous red list, saying that we should instead stay “in the middle of the yellow list”.
As far as restrictions are concerned, Krunoslav Capak said that they also thought about this, but they let tourists come because tourism is a very important branch of the economy for Croatia. However, he added, they are now thinking about it again. He also said that we have an excellent situation with tourists and that only a few of them arrived infected.
As for the possibility of introducing an obligation to wear masks indoors, Krunoslav Capak expressed skepticism about introducing that obligation for all indoor spaces, saying he thinks masks should be kept in areas where more people stay indoors for longer periods of time.
”That is being discussed,” Krunoslav Capak briefly said.
He added that they didn’t ban or punish people during the epidemic and that they still think that education and warning are the best measures, but that they will discuss tightening and controlling the wearing of masks if it proves to be necessary.
”I’m appealing to everyone to listen to what the epidemiologists are saying because that’s our job,” concluded Capak.
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