Following the significant increase in positive cases of Covid-19 in recent days, today was held the meeting of the Committee for coordination and assessment of the situation with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The National Institute of Public Health has confirmed that almost all of these cases are of the Omicron variant, which spreads extremely quickly and easily compared to previous variants of the Corona virus.

The new variant of the Corona virus requires updating of measures based on data, said the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, at the opening of the meeting. Due to the extremely contagious nature of the Omicron variant, the rise of cases, at least for a time, was inevitable. Therefore, the Prime Minister requested from this Committee that the established measures have as main goal the slowing down of the increase of cases.

Slowing down the increase in the number of cases will ensure that the functioning of the health system is not endangered by a large and sudden influx of patients in hospitals, or by the lack of infected health workers. Also, such a slowdown will give time to the citizens to be vaccinated as massively as possible, either with the first two doses, or with the boosting dose. This will provide them with protection from infection or serious illness, as well as help Kosovo as a whole to overcome the current wave as quickly as possible and with as few consequences as possible.

From this meeting, a call was made to the citizens not to underestimate the Omicron variant. All the information from other countries clearly and without any doubt proves that this variant can cause serious illness and loss of life, especially among unvaccinated persons and, to some extent, even among those who have not received the booster dose.

Therefore, I urge citizens to be vaccinated as soon as possible and, in particular, to take the booster dose as soon as three months have passed since receiving the second dose. As always, the strongest and most effective means of protecting ourselves and others around us remains mass vaccination.