Original article (in Croatian) was published on 22/02/2022
The former member of the Scientific Council of the Government of the Republic of Croatia, Gordan Lauc, again unfoundedly claims that epidemiological measures are meaningless.
Molecular biologist Gordan Lauc revealed on Facebook his speculations about the course of the pandemic.
“If we had abolished all measures in the spring of last year, the number of infected, severely ill and deceased from COVID-19 would have been almost the same, and the damage we all have yet to pay would have been much, much less”, claims Lauc.
This is part of his post from February 21 (archived here) in which he refers to an article published in Jutarnji list, entitled: “Djikic: Measures and COVID-19 certificates in Croatia have not yielded results, it should be considered to abolish them”.
The text published in Jutarnji list quotes Ivan Djikic’s statement for RTL in which the scientist said that the measures in Croatia did not give results because they were introduced too late, and many did not adhere to them.
“The measures we have, such as COVID-19 certificates and other measures introduced by the Headquarters, have proven to be ineffective so far and should be abolished because if they are not effective, then it is unnecessary to have them”, Djikic told RTL.
In the form of a headline, Djikic’s statement was then shared by several websites (Tportal, Index, Direktno, DalmacijaNews).
While omitting the part in which Djikic said that the measures were introduced too late and that many did not adhere to them, RTL journalist Boris Misevic also commented on his Facebook account, stating that Djikic, who advocated the introduction of measures, is now trying to change the story.
Just like Misevic, Lauc, who was expelled from the Government’s Scientific Council in November last year, used Djikic’s statement to conclude the following:
“Measures” do not have, nor did they make sense. They did not give results either in Croatia or anywhere else in Europe. We all got infected (many didn’t even notice it) with, or without measures. Since now Dr. Doom is publicly declaring it, I don’t think there will be too much discussion about that”, Lauc writes.
The theory that it would have been better if Croatia had lifted all measures in the spring of last year was presented by Lauc in an interview with Dubrovacki dnevnik, at the end of January. He also said that Croatia had managed the pandemic well. He said that, with the exception of the last wave, “adjusted for GDP, our death toll is among the lowest in Europe”.
We remind you that COVID-19 killed almost 15,000 people in Croatia. When looking at the mortality of COVID-19, Croatia is among the worst countries in the world.
Abolition of measures
Several European countries, including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden, have announced lifting most restrictions and epidemiological measures against the spread of COVID-19, except those measures related to wearing masks indoors (1, 2, 3).
This week, neighboring Slovenia also lifted most of its epidemiological measures, including COVID-19 certificates, whose use remained limited to the riskiest facilities, such as hospitals and nursing homes.
Gordan Lauc used these announcements to re-promote the claim that epidemiological measures are harmful. We have dealt with his similar claims before when he unfoundedly claimed that during a two-year period, epidemiological measures killed as many people as the virus.
As for his claim suggesting that the number of infected, severely ill and deceased would be almost the same if the measures were abolished last year, Lauc does not state any basis, nor does he refer to specific studies.
It is quite difficult to predict the course of a pandemic, regardless of whether certain epidemiological measures are in place or not. At the global level, there are still large differences in the vaccination of the population, which further complicates the fight against the pandemic. In addition, last year, more contagious strains of the virus have emerged that more easily bypass immunity gained by illness and vaccination.
In other words, measures aimed at curbing the spread of the epidemic do not have the same effect everywhere. Their effectiveness depends on the level of vaccination of the population, the virulence and infectivity of strains currently in circulation, the extent to which residents adhere to the measures, but also the cultural differences that guide the patterns of behavior of residents.
Studies
When Lauc says that everyone has become infected, without or with the use of measures, he ignores the fact that epidemiological measures are adopted primarily to reduce the burden on the health system. In other words, no public health measures against the spread of COVID-19, including vaccinations against the disease, guarantee that infection will not occur.
However, to claim that the measures do not make any sense is incorrect because there are numerous studies whose results indicate their usefulness.
Here are just a few of them.
A meta-study published in the British Medical Journal in November 2021, which includes an analysis of several studies on the effectiveness of measures, shows that measures such as washing and disinfecting hands, wearing a mask and maintaining physical distance can still reduce the spread of infection.
The target of the study also included research on the effectiveness of school closure measures, which proved useful in controlling the infection. When it comes to lockdowns, an analysis of data from 202 countries showed that countries that introduced the measure of complete closure had fewer new daily cases of COVID-19.
A study published in late 2021 in the prestigious journal the Lancet on the spread of the infection during the third wave in Hong Kong, also suggests that certain epidemiological measures, such as limiting the number of people at public gatherings, and targeted testing, have an effect on reducing the spread of infection.
Furthermore, the results of a study published in the journal Nature Human Behavior in late 2020, which examines epidemiological measures adopted by the governments of 226 countries, also confirm the same. Although the study concludes that no measure is effective enough to prevent the spread of the virus, the most effective include curfews, limiting the gathering of large numbers of people (including closing restaurants, shops, working from home) and closing educational institutions.
It is true that certain measures, such as complete closure, have a negative impact on the economy. Furthermore, increasing research shows that measures such as school closures have an impact on the mental health of children and adolescents (1, 2, 3). In addition, some studies emphasize that mortality from COVID-19 is more associated with an investment in health care, hospital capacity, testing capacity, and early implementation of a countermeasures strategy.
The fact is that there is no scientific consensus on the effectiveness of individual measures or on the benefit-harm ratio of the measures (nor is it easy to calculate due to different local social, political and cultural contexts). However, no study shows that the non-implementation of the measures would lead to the same epidemiological situation as their implementation.
Croatian context
What Lauc omits when quoting a fellow scientist is the part in which Djikic says that the measures were introduced too late and that not everyone adhered to them, which is necessary for their implementation to be successful.
In the context of pandemic management, Croatia did not stand out as a positive example. As we have already written, the measures adopted by the National Headquarters were often inconsistent, and the members of the Headquarters themselves repeatedly sent ambiguous messages and appeared at events where the same measures were violated.
Furthermore, according to Our World in Data, on February 20, only 55 percent of the population in Croatia was vaccinated with two doses of vaccine, while the third, the so-called booster dose, was given to only 14.7 percent of the population. When looking at data from other European countries repealing the measures (e.g., 62.1 percent of the population was vaccinated with the third dose in Denmark, 45.6 percent in Sweden and 56.2 percent in Germany), it can be concluded that the vaccination campaign in Croatia did not succeed.
Poor pandemic management is ultimately reflected in the number of deaths associated with COVID-19.
In mid-June last year, according to Worldometers, Croatia was in 15th place out of 222 countries, or 10 percent of the worst when it comes to the number of dead in relation to the number of inhabitants.
At the beginning of December 2021, according to Our World in Data, Croatia was also at the top of the world in terms of the number of daily deaths from COVID-19. Due to high mortality and mild epidemiological measures, doctors from the Croatian Association of Hospital Doctors accused the Government and the National Headquarters of being most responsible for the devastating statistics (1, 2).
In this context, when Djikic says that the measures have proved ineffective, the reasons for this should not be sought in whether they are at their core effective or not, but in whether they were introduced in time and how they were implemented.
The end of the pandemic?
Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) director for the European region, said in late January that the pandemic is far from being over, but he hopes its “emergency” phase will end in 2022.
Kluge said that Omicron, although it causes a milder form of Delta disease, still causes a large number of hospitalizations due to an enormous number of infections and that most people who need intensive care are unvaccinated. Since Omicron is less dangerous than previous strains, the WHO hopes that its accelerated spread will actually bring stabilization and normalization (1, 2).
Returning to the “old normal” in Croatia is still not an option.
Although the directors of KBC Split and Rijeka confirmed that the situation in hospitals is calming down, the Minister of Health Vili Beros said that the current numbers of newly infected and deceased from COVID-19 still do not allow relaxation of measures (Index).
