The additional quarantine in Kumanovo will not contribute to the reduction in the number of patients with coronavirus, from the epidemiological point of view. We already have serious restrictive measures adopted throughout the country, which, if followed, will reduce the spread of the virus, said Vladimir Mikic, epidemiologist at the Institute of Public Health.
Kumanovo is the second largest city in the country in terms of the number of infected residents – at least 306, just behind the capital Skopje which registers according to the latest official figures of 367 infected, and far ahead of Debar – the city that was the first coronavirus hotspot in Macedonia – with a total number of 51 cases so far.
Therefore, the municipal authorities in Kumanovo, as well as the local public, have been demanding the introduction of quarantine measures in the area for a whole week, especially after it was announced on Thursday that Mayor Maxim Dimitrievski and five other members of the Crisis HQ tested positive to coronavirus.
For his part, Mikic clarified that a parallel should not be made between Debar and Kumanovo, or that it should be believed that one model applied in Debar would work well in Kumanovo.
“When quarantine is introduced, it is introduced for one reason, and that is to reduce the possibility of transmitting the disease from one region to another. When the quarantine measure was declared in Debar, then we had a completely different situation in the country, where almost the first cluster of incidents was registered, so the idea was to slow down the spread from Debar to the rest of the country. “Kumanovo is in a completely different situation at the moment,” he added.
