This is what the Head of National Emergency, Skënder Brataj, said pointing out that the epidemiological situation has improved with the process of large-scale vaccination playing a crucial role.

Brataj said that the relaxation of measures is being evaluated, striking a note of optimism about a relaxed season regarding the restrictions induced by the pandemic.

“The situation is optimistic in terms of new infections, hospitalizations, fatalities, it seems that the figures are stationary. But we must not lose sight of the measures in place. Caution should be exercised. The whole world is coping with the pandemics and currently there is a slight increase in hospitalizations, I noted it in the first days of May and due to election campaign that closed on April 25 and the post-campaign celebrations, the infection figures are likely to slightly increase. We therefore call for caution and strict adherence to the measures. The good news is that COVID 3 and COVID 4 hospitals are on standby, while COVID 1 and COVID 2 are working at below 50 percent of their capacity for inpatients,” Brataj said.

“Regarding hospitalizations, before the start of May there were 5 inpatients per day, so the number of admissions was much lower than the number of discharges, putting the number of hospitalizations at -5 while in the first days of May it is at +2.6. The time of patients’ stay in hospitals is shorter and the forms of the disease are milder tha before,” said Brataj.

Brataj said that the vaccines are effective. “We want to vaccinate as many people as possible, before other virus strains arrive in the country, so the large-scale vaccination continues apace with 15,000-25,000 doses administered per day. 18% of the population has been immunized with 517,000 vaccinated three days ago, of whom 407,000 inoculated with one dose and the rest with two doses. We are replicating the British model. In the region Albania ranks first in terms of vaccination numbers. There are over 400,000 vaccines available with shipments of vaccine arriving every week,” Brataj added.

Regarding the tourist season, Brataj said that we are going towards relaxation of measures, summer will be mask-free.”
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