The European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC) reports that Lithuania currently has higher Covid-19 death rate than most other countries in Europe, even those reporting more infections. According to the ECDC, Lithuania’s 14-day new infection rate stands at 322 cases per 100,000 people as of mid-September. The country ranks seventh among the EU/EEA countries.
As to mortality rates, Lithuania ranks third with 45 deaths per million population over the last two weeks. Ireland, Estonia, and Slovenia have higher infection rates, but relatively fewer deaths than Lithuania.
Valdas Pečeliūnas, deputy director of Santara Clinics in Vilnius, says the variance may be due to a number of factors, including the general state of health in Lithuania, which is slightly worse than that of Western Europeans and Scandinavians. He noted that vaccination is another important factor. Tomas Tamošaitis, head of Intensive Therapy at Kaunas Clinics points out that Lithuania has one of the highest mortality rates from heart and vascular diseases in Europe, which reflects on attitudes toward diseases and their prevention.
The Santara Clinic, one of the largest hospitals treating coronavirus patients in Lithuania, has been reporting one or two Covid-19 deaths a day. Most of the hospitalized people are unvaccinated. Of those who died of Covid-19 but were vaccinated, all were over 60 and had other serious health conditions.
Lithuania’s hospitals are currently treating 857 coronavirus patients, 85 of them are in intensive care. Since the start of the pandemic, 4,721 people died of Covid-19. Fifty-nine of them had been fully vaccinated.
News from LRT.lt
