Our View: It’s high time we learned to live with Covid

The health ministry on Thursday gave a breakdown of the vaccination status of Covid patients in hospitals. A little more than half of those in hospital (55 per cent) were unvaccinated, while one quarter (23 per cent) were hospitalised despite having received a booster shot.  Double-vaccinated patients accounted for 3 per cent while 19 per cent were partially vaccinated.

This data, to an extent, undermined the government’s drive to force people to get the jab, but it probably has decided that a satisfactory percentage of the adult population is now vaccinated, and it can make an effort “to enhance transparency and proper information to citizens.” Until very recently, the health ministry shunned transparency and only gave out information that supported its Covid messaging, ignoring calls for more details regarding hospitalisations.

At the start of the pandemic, two years ago, the ministry’s announcement would mention if there was an underlying health condition to a person that died of or with Covid, but this was eventually dropped on the grounds that it was a violation of personal data. We can only guess this was done to ensure healthy people would not lose the fear of the virus and ignore the safety measures. If we were informed that 90 per cent of Covid deaths were of people with underlying health conditions and of advanced years many more people would have questioned the decrees and restrictive measures.

We must be reaching the end of the pandemic, or at least the end of the latest wave of the virus for the government to have decided to enhance transparency and proper information. Health minister Michalis Hadjipantelas spoke about the possible relaxation of measures next week after he meets the scientific advisory team. We just hope he does not pay too much heed to the ultra-cautious advice of the scientists.

The hospitalisations are down, below 200, despite the persistently high daily cases, which are inevitable given the high rate of daily testing – 10 per cent of the population. This should probably also be scaled back as it causes major disruption throughout the economy, without protecting anyone.

As the normally, ultra-cautious, scientific team member, Professor Petros Karayiannis said, “life must carry on, we have to learn to live with the virus.” Indeed, over 80 per cent of the adult population is vaccinated and the restrictions we have had to live under can no longer be justified. The blatant discrimination against the unvaccinated must also end as it has gone on for far too long. It is high time we learn to live with the virus.