‘The fourth peak is the outbreak of the unvaccinated’

* Photo: Gökhan Balcı - Edirne / AA

Click to read the article in Turkish

Edirne Medical Chamber Chair Prof. Gürcan Altun says that the people who have not been vaccinated against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) are now experiencing the fourth peak of the outbreak.

Speaking in a meeting at the Medical Chamber yesterday (August 11), Altun said that the virus keeps being transmitted due to the ones who have not been vaccinated or have received only the first dose.

Noting that the more the virus spreads, the more variants of the virus arise, Altun said, "The virus is evolving. For nearly 1.5 months, there have been talks about the existence of a variant originating from South Africa in China. However, there is yet no scientific data as to how contagious this new variant is or how grave a picture it leads to in patients."

70 percent must be vaccinated

Stressing the importance of vaccination in the face of new variants of the virus, Prof. Alun briefly stated the following:

"According to the data of the Health Ministry, 47 percent of the citizens aged 18 and over have been vaccinated with both doses. The rate foreseen for mass immunization is 70 percent. But the delta variant is spreading very fast and it leads to a very severe picture of the disease.

"Everyone needs to be vaccinated in the shortest time possible. If we cannot finish this vaccination schedule and cannot vaccinate the target group by the end of September, the next winter will be hard.

"Physicians have been vaccinated. But the latest number of deceased healthcare workers is 438. When we consider the onset of the outbreak, the number of deaths among healthcare workers was very high. Especially in the last 3 months, there are few if any deaths among health workers.

"This is a direct effect of vaccination.

"The fourth peak of the COVID-19 outbreak is the outbreak of the ones who have nıot been vaccinated. In Turkey, 80 percent and more of intensive care patients are either unvaccinated or have received only the first dose. Therefore, for the health of themselves and that of their loved ones, it is an obligation and civic duty that everyone gets vaccinated."

Current vaccination numbers in Turkey

As of 7 pm on August 11, 1,296,688 vaccine doses, either those of Sinovac or Pfizer/BioNTech, were administered in Turkey in the last 24 hours.

While 42,944,623 people have been vaccinated with the first dose in Turkey so far, 31,186,864 have received the second dose and 6,179,875 people have been given the third dose. Taken together, the total number of vaccine doses administered so far is 80,311,362.

While 69.19 percent of Turkey's population over the age of 18 has been vaccinated with the first dose, this rate is 50.24 percent for the second dose. (AS/SD)