OREANDA-NEWS. It is difficult to make predictions about the seasonality of coronavirus infection, at the moment there are only prerequisites. This was announced to Izvestia on Tuesday, December 28, by the infectious disease doctor Evgeny Timakov.

Earlier that day, the head of Rospotrebnadzor, Anna Popova, at an informal CIS summit, said that the coronavirus would mutate and new strains of it would appear, and over time, the infection would become a seasonal disease. Not a single virus stops developing, the specialist recalled. The Omicron strain will not be the final version, she stressed.

Timakov, in turn, expressed doubts that COVID-19 is now becoming a seasonal infection.

“Our summer was not the season, and the coronavirus infection was growing. Now in other countries it is not a season, and "Omicron" causes morbidity. So far, it has such prerequisites, there are options that it becomes seasonal. But we do not know for sure yet, ”he said.

As the infectious disease specialist explained, if the virus becomes seasonal, this means that it is possible to predict its rise in incidence in advance, which means that measures for vaccination or revaccination can be taken in advance.

Earlier on Tuesday, it became known that more than 78 million Russians were vaccinated with the first component of the drug against coronavirus. As the head of the Ministry of Health Mikhail Murashko noted, the start of mass vaccination was the most significant event in 2021.