After the meeting of the Ministry of Health Coronavirus Scientific Committee, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca made statements.
Speaking about the date the masks will be released, Minister Koca said, “We should not forget that the virus is still circulating among us. Let’s not forget that we are slowly trying to return to normal life in order not to pay heavier prices. From now on, individual measures will be much more important. We will start to normalize by taking our own precautions. summer will be this summer,” he said.
We pay heavys price
Highlights from Minister Koca’s statements;
“Our Scientific Committee convened today and discussed the gradual normalization period and the vaccination program. I am here to inform you of the evaluations we made with our Scientific Committee. Considering the course of the epidemic, the periods when social mobility was restricted resulted in a dramatic decrease in the number of cases. real. We witness the decrease in the number of cases by paying a great price in each closure period. On the other hand, we experience every opening period when we lose control, leaving deep traces with the exponentially increasing number of cases, number of patients and losses. We pay a heavy price sociologically.
“The virus is still with us”
Closure periods have a very important role in the management of the acute problems of the epidemic. However, its long-term social and psychological effects should not be ignored. We should not squander the results of the sacrifices we have made in times of restrictions, by hastying and trying to return to our old normals. Although we have provided an important break in the course of the epidemic, we should not forget that the virus is still circulating among us.
We will talk about better days at the end of summer
We are tired under the social burden of the epidemic as much as the disease burden. If the vaccination program can be carried out successfully and as planned, it has become apparent that we will talk about better days, not the epidemic, at the end of the summer, and that we will remove the epidemic from our national and individual agendas.
In order to be able to successfully implement this, I have only one new request from you: Please, our citizens, whose turn it is to be vaccinated, get their vaccinations. Our domestic vaccine studies continue at full speed. Our vaccine candidate, which was developed with the support of TÜSEB, which will start the Phase-3 human trials, which is the last phase of the vaccine studies, has been produced as a study product and its final tests are being carried out. As soon as it passes the tests successfully, its clinical use will begin as soon as possible.
Comparisons are made for vaccines that have been used in our country recently. You can be sure that these comparisons are not made in concrete and scientific media. It has not been long enough to make an assessment on the strengths or weaknesses of vaccines. Technically, years of follow-up are required to compare one vaccine with another. However, all coronavirus vaccines are still very new. What is important here is the introduction of vaccines that have successfully completed safety and efficacy tests and clinical trials.
Based on these criteria, our Ministry and Science Board conducts studies and guides to make the safest and most effective vaccines available to our citizens. In other words, we are confident that the vaccines used in our country are effective and safe. I would like you to keep in mind that these should not be compared with each other and that it is not possible in the near future. For this reason, when it is your turn, you should safely vaccinate with whatever vaccine you have the opportunity to be vaccinated.
We cannot talk about stopping the epidemic without immunizing at least 60 percent of our society with our vaccine program. For this reason, we are responsible for protecting ourselves and our loved ones. I repeat once again, the path to the old normal is through vaccination. Let him take his place in the fight as his next vaccine. We will succeed together as 84 million.”
