In Latvia and Europe, the incidence of Covid has been declining for several weeks. Ilze Arāja, a spokeswoman for the Disease Prevention and Control, stressed that while looking at the data, certain weeks also show exceptions.
“There was a decrease in all age groups a couple of weeks earlier, yet last week we see data showing a slight uptick in the age group 10-19. As autumn starts and the weather gets cooler, it must be remembered that, with symptoms of the illness, we remain at home. We don't let children go to school, kindergarten,” Arāja said.
Indra Zeltiņa, Professor of the Infectology Department of Rīga Stradiņš University, also previously indicated that currently, the incidence of Covid-19 is decreasing, but the morbidity is likely to increase in November and December.
Current illness rates do not create a load for NMPD. Its director, Liene Cipule, stressed that, for various other reasons, the availability of brigades at the service is even lower than a year ago.
“At the moment, we have quite a lot of other absence reasons, and we are feeling such a “rebound” from the decisions that were taken to be able to overcome the crisis when employees were not let go on vacations. So these vacations are now being taken. And the other – we currently have more limited possibilities to get overtime,” Cipule said.
She explained that the service is currently going out to about 20 Covid patients daily and about 15 of them are being hospitalized. Covid among the staff of NMPD is not common currently.
