AMMAN — While
COVID-19 cases have remained relatively low
for the past weeks, an epidemiology expert and member of
Jordan’s Epidemiology Committee called for Jordan to prepare itself for a third wave of the
coronavirus.
اضافة اعلان
“We are in good shape now. I think the curve is going down
these days,” said Muhannad Nsour, executive director of the Eastern Medittarean
Public Health Network and member of the Epidemics Committee, in an interview
with Jordan News.
He described the second wave of
COVID-19 in the Kingdom as
“Coming to an end”. However, he pointed out that the low number of cases and
deaths at the moment should not lull citizens into a false sense of security.
“The problem with Jordanians, as with many other people in
the region, is that when we have a decline in the number of cases, we have
relief and we go into a relax mode,” Nsour said. “I hope that this time we will
not have as much a relaxed model. The difference between the first wave and the
second wave was only two weeks because we relaxed, felt secure, felt safe, and
we paid the price at the end of the day when we had a very strong wave. I hope
this time we should be more realistic. We have to go gradually with opening up
sectors.”
Nsour said that no matter how many restrictions Jordanians
take, however, there is still the possibility of a third wave of COVID-19
hitting the country. “So far our level of vaccination is a bit low. We need to
do more,” he said. “I think the third wave is something that we should be ready
for. And we should not be surprised. We should immediately start working on the
third wave.”
The epidemiologist also called on Jordan to focus on lessons
learned from the challenges faced in the second wave. “We need to see our
limitations or challenges that we faced in the second wave,” he said. “We need,
for example, to make sure that all our hospitals are more ready to hold
patients. We need to make sure that we have enough human resources. We need to
make sure that we are doing more towards vaccinations.” He recommended field
hospitals be well-equipped with both medical equipment and human resources.
Nsour added that the government’s stated goal of reopening
the “Golden Triangle” of touristic sites — Wadi Rum, Aqaba, and Petra — for a
“safe summer” is “realistic” because those sites all host relatively small
populations. “It’s not highly populated. It’s easy to be controlled. It’s a
very well-defined catchment area,” he explained.
However, for the rest of the population, Nsour expects
Jordan will have to adjust to a “new normal. “We need to do more in terms of
keeping distance, avoiding gatherings. We need to use our masks. I think this
is our new normal,” he said. “We need to know that it will not disappear
easily. It will not be treated by others for us. We have to be a strategic
player to fight against this pandemic. This is normal.”
The scientist urged Jordanians to practice social distancing
and refrain from large gatherings. “People like to gather. This is part of our
culture,” he said. “You cannot imagine how critical this is for us ... We
should not expect every time we have improvement in epidemiological situations
that we go back to these gatherings. Social, religious, sport, whatever. It
should be stopped.”
In addition to social distancing measures and wearing masks,
Nsour emphasized that vaccination is a key weapon in the fight against the
virus. “We need to do more with the vaccine. We need to vaccinate five, six
million maybe” to reach herd immunity, he said. “We hope that at least now by
the end of this year maybe (we will vaccinate) 4 million. We need to do it.”
On Tuesday, the government announced that over a million
people in Jordan had received the COVID-19 vaccine. Nsour described the “first
million” as “the most difficult one, but now we need to continue. And things
are getting better in terms of the vaccine. Globally, people are becoming more
interested and governments are taking more serious actions.”
The World Health Organization’s weekly Epidemiological
Update noted that Jordan recorded 11,654 new cases of COVID-19 in the past
week. There were 6,979 cumulative cases per 100 thousand of the population and
86.9 cumulative deaths per 100,000 of the population. The update also found
that the global total of COVID-19 cases is at its highest levels since the
beginning of the pandemic, with over 5.7 million new weekly cases.
Additionally, the Eastern Mediterranean region ranks fourth in terms of new
cases in the past week, contributing only 6 percent of new cases to the global
total.
“We are part of the solution. Citizens should be part of the
solution, not part of the problem,” Nsour said. “We need to help each other by
wearing masks.”
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