Moscow is moving away from the isolation: experts said what will happen next

"ALREADY TOMORROW - JUNE 9, 2020 - SELF-INSULATION AND PASSING MODE CANCELED. WALKING SCHEDULE IS CANCELED ALONG WITH IT.

Residents of the city, including Muscovites over 65 and citizens suffering from chronic diseases, can go outside without restrictions, go about their business, and visit public places.

Once again, social cards will be earned, and beneficiaries will be able to use the right of free travel in public transport", - said Sobyanin.

The decision of the mayor is commented by experts.

Gennady Onishchenko, epidemiologist, State Duma deputy, first deputy chairman of the State Duma committee on education and science:

- It's time to cancel all measures. We scare ourselves too much with this coronavirus. With this coronavirus, we will soon leave our children without a future in the state of the economy that we had before the epidemic, this is unforgivable carelessness.

As for the situation, it is such that it should be at such a level of incidence. Nobody takes anything off. Emphasis is changing. It’s high time for people to walk the streets, rather than sit in “large” apartments, which for many decades have been calculated at the rate of 7 square meters per person. And this brings much more harm than that, a little even exaggerated situation, with the spread of coronavirus.

People, even a little older than fifty, even if they stay at home for a week, at least want to climb the wall. Therefore, everything must be done adequately. It is time for people to give the opportunity to receive medical care, which was stopped due to an unmistakable threat. As a result, someone did not receive a planned operation, someone did not receive the necessary course of chemotherapy at the time that was prescribed. Now, even if you double the dose, it will be too late to do so. I'm not talking about what kind of psychotic disorders people got. Not only in our country, but throughout the world. In Europe, too, they were locked up, reaching the line between psychology and psychiatry. Let us be realistic, we will not intimidate ourselves, but we will not detract from the situation that exists. As for the removal of events, if we instead of household imprisonment in solitary or group confined spaces, we will comply with the requirements for the use of personal protective equipment, everything will be fine.

Victor Zuev, MD, professor, head of the department of microbiology of latent infections of the Gamalei Institute:

- How timely is the abolition of all quarantine measures? Is this fraught with a new outbreak of morbidity?

- To make forecasts is a thankless task. I believe that this is quite normal, quite decent and timely, because the summer heat has begun. This is the second. And firstly, the audience has already begun to walk without masks. The measure is as old as the world: there is only one idea quarantined - to interrupt the transmission of the pathogen from person to person. Therefore, if in the heat, when you are unbearable at home, you go for a walk, putting on a face mask and gloves on your hands, you follow this rule. Especially if you do not go to the theater or to the cinema.

It is necessary to prevent the transmission of the pathogen from person to person, and then there is nothing to fear. But heat is a very important factor. COVID-19 is a premotropic virus. Now you don’t remember about the flu? We forget about him in the summer months. I remember in September and am going to be vaccinated. Every year, although 40 years worked with the flu virus. I think the coronavirus will have the same story, it will visit us twice a year - in wet autumn and windy, rainy, cold spring. In late autumn and early spring.

And now the weather is wonderful. However, I believe that personal protective equipment and social distance are very useful. I am saddened by the fact that the number of cases in the country has not yet been reduced significantly, does not fall sharply down. In Moscow, the dynamics are positive. I think that the plateau is held by outbreaks in the regions. I think that summer will help us in this very, very seriously. By the fall, of course, there will be new cases. Someone calls this the "second wave." But we do not call seasonal flu “waves”? Coronavirus will become a seasonal disease.

Alexey Agranovsky, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor, Department of Virology, Faculty of Biology, Moscow State University M.V. Lomonosov:

- To what extent, from your point of view, has the self-isolation regime in Moscow been abolished in a timely manner?

- Of course, the country still has a significant background of morbidity. But society cannot be locked up all the time. Sooner or later, quarantine must be lifted. I think the time has come, the decision is right. Months of self-isolation, quarantine were assigned correctly. And now enough time has passed, the incidence is decreasing, it is time to cancel the restrictions. A person gets tired of everything: from any informational background, from any measures, people begin to do everything in their own way. As water chooses its own path, so does human society - it does not live by the laws written in books, the human community rather lives by the physicochemical laws. Obedience is not endless. Therefore, we see people who wear masks under their chins.

We have a fairly undisciplined, but obedient population. Apparently, they felt it, and it was time to abandon the measures introduced. Although, I must say, some of them were perplexing: for example, the fines that motorists received for driving in a personal car without a pass. I believe that this is just a disgrace. The safest way to get around is in your personal car. Why it was necessary to fine a pensioner who, living in a summer cottage, learns about a water leak in a Moscow apartment. He gets into the old "six", goes to the city and receives a fairly substantial fine for this. Surely, many people suffered, and no one ever compensates. On the other hand, some measures were completely justified. Self-isolation, I believe, was needed. I have no unequivocally critical attitude to what was being done. It should also be borne in mind that the authorities in no country in the world never know the future, no matter how exaggerated their abilities. In no country in the world did authorities really know what measures to take. It’s time to remove restrictions, despite the fact that a certain danger persists, but it is not so great as to prolong the quarantine.

- Has the incoming heat reduced the risk of infection?

- Significantly reduces. Mainly due to the fact that the virus does not fly through the air in the form of a viral particle, it coughs up with sputum to the diseased or carrier. While sputum is wet, the virus persists in it. Settling on the surfaces, sputum dries, the virus is inactivated. At high temperatures, virus inactivation also occurs faster. It can be imagined as a rapidly decaying isotope - it has a short half-life. Bacterial sores in the heat increase due to a number of reasons, and viral ones, especially those transmitted by airborne droplets, due to the mentioned reasons, are less likely to spread. Let's hope for a decrease in the number of cases.

- Do I have to be careful when visiting museums, concerts, cinema?

- I think that we must behave in a collected manner, while respecting the social distance. Do not go with a guide, but watch the exhibition together, read about the exposition. Keep clear of crowds. This will significantly reduce the risk of infection. This story is possible for a long time in the human population. Four coronaviruses that caused respiratory illness were already known. The current is a more serious version of COVID-19. It will be for a long time, but I do not think there will be a big flash. And, of course, there will be no information outbreak, which, from my point of view, has caused people no less harm. Everyone is tired of this topic, they even forgot about Greta Tunberg. We were scared in the eighties with nitrates and nitrites in vegetables, a little later - with mad cow disease. Well, where is it now? Who remembers this? The harm from the information epidemic is comparable to the real harm to human health due to infection. And there's nothing to be done about it. I think that for now people need to be careful enough, although summer has come and I want to go crazy.