‘Immunity appears only 2-3 weeks after the first vaccine’

“There will not be an explosive growth of infection”

There will not be an explosive growth of the coronavirus incidence because of the 10-day New Year holidays, said vice head of Russia’s consumer rights protection watchdog in Tatarstan Lyubov Avdonina on 11 January when evaluating the first New Year with coronavirus restrictions. She predicted such a course of events as early as in the middle of December — if preventive measures are met, of course.

“It is necessary to note that the measures were mostly followed, I mean those events that were hosted. And masks are anyway becoming our normality in the fight with the novel coronavirus infection, and all the events this New Year were held following necessary preventive measures. And we hope that those small faults that were detected won’t significantly influence a rise in the incidence. It goes without saying that we should wait for another 14 days if there will be a significant growth or not. But I think that the preventive measures in general did some good, and there won’t be an explosive growth of the infection,” Avdonina claimed.

On the holidays, the watchdog kept overseeing facilities across Tatarstan — the specialists have visited 1,426 places in total. Violations have been detected in 49 sites, or 3,4%. Around 100 places of mass celebrations have been checked, “isolated violations” have been found, that’s to say, the preventive measures in general were met there.

“Commerce has accounted for 2,3% of the violations, it is food and non-food stores. There have been found violations in 16 out of 677 facilities in such districts as Bugulma, Laishevo, Chistopol, Zainsk, Nizhnekamsk and Almetyevsk,” the vice head of the consumer rights protection watchdog said.

Cafes and restaurants are under special control — 134 enterprises have been examined, violations of anti-COVID-19 measures (5%) have been found in seven of them. These establishments are located in Zelenodolsk, Kazan and Almetyevsk. Children’s camps met the preventive measures the best. 13,000 children have been on holiday in camps in schools and in the suburbs. A random selection has demonstrated they don’t have violations.

899 cases of COVID-19 have been registered in Tatarstan since 1 January 2021 — the growth pace is at 0,7% (in December, it was 0,8%). However, the number of community-acquired pneumonia has increased by 41% during the first nine days in December. The coronavirus incidence among people older than 65 years has increased too — by 56%.

“Immunity appears only 2-3 weeks later”

The topic of vaccinations against coronavirus in Tatarstan, which is already in an active phase, was raised separately. At the moment, 2,420 people have been vaccinated against coronavirus in Tatarstan. The latest batch of Sputnik V vaccine was delivered on 30 December 2020. Nowadays Tatarstan has received 6,900 kits of vaccine doses.

“We hope that the vaccination pace will now increase, without doubt, because working days have begun. I want to urge the population to be more active, go to polyclinics, vaccination centres to protect themselves from such a trouble as the novel coronavirus infection by receiving a vaccine,” Zhavoronkov said.

He also commented on information about the absence of the vaccine against COVID-19 in Kazan’s Hospital No. 7.

“According to our data, we are provided with vaccines. If Hospital No. 7 was busy on the New Year holidays and ran out of the stock of vaccines, it means now we will deal with deployment and provide the hospital with a necessary amount of vaccines,” he promised.

Avdonina noted that there is a risk of getting infected even after vaccination against coronavirus.

“As for vaccination, one shouldn’t think that you received the first jab and can completely relax: throw away masks, stop washing your hands and do the same after the second jab: this is absolutely wrong: it is necessary to be cautious about one’s health and follow all preventive measures precisely before and after vaccination. As immunity appears only 2-3 weeks after the second jab. Clearly, if you received the first vaccine, follow all measures: wear a mask, wash your hands, keep a distance. We also should follow all the measures after the second vaccination,” the speaker noted.

Another important moment is that no vaccine guarantees that you won’t contract the disease. “There won’t be a severe case, complications, deaths after the vaccine. The production of protective antibodies allows either not contracting the disease when meeting the virus for the second time or having a mild case,” Avdonina calmed the audience down.