Latvian laboratories may have reached the maximum capacity for Covid-19 testing

RIGA - The number of Covid-19 tests performed in Latvian laboratories has not been increasing recently, which means that the maximum capacity that laboratories are able to provide has been reached, Jurijs Perevoscikovs, director of the Infectious Diseases Risk Analysis and Prevention Department at the Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), told Latvian Television this morning.

He acknowledged that the number of persons infected with Covid-19 was actually much higher than official statistics show.

However, the good news is that the increase in the proportion of detected positive cases is stabilizing - it is at 39-40 percent at the moment and is not growing anymore. "This could already indicate that there may not be increase in the coming weeks anymore," the CDC representative said.

In the European Union as a whole, an increase in the incidence of Covid-19 in recent days has no longer been observed, which is a positive signal, the expert said.

Perevoscikovs said that the number of hospitalized Covid-19 patients is increasing. The number of patients with a primary diagnosis of Covid-19 has increased by about 80 percent in one month, while the number of patients with Covid-19 as an additional ailment has quadrupled in a month.

Speaking about the treatment of Covid-19 patients, he also emphasized the high rate of infection among medical staff, which is making it increasingly difficult to provide adequate services.

He added that the situation at hospitals cannot be said to be "very critical and dramatic" at the moment, but it cannot be ruled out that the continued uncontrolled spread of Covid-19 will soon lead to an increase in the incidence of elderly persons with chronic illnesses, Perevoscikovs said, adding that "this is likely to happen in the coming weeks, so it is still necessary to be very careful".