COVID-19 review: pandemic in Lithuania is gaining momentum since mid-March

VILNIUS – The coronavirus pandemic in Lithuania has been gaining momentum since March 12 and for almost a month now there have been no days when the weekly number of new coronavirus cases would go down, and only the speed of the spread has been changing, according to the Lithuanian government's review into the COVID-19 situation.

It shows that as of Tuesday, either the number of new coronavirus cases or the percentage of positive tests had increased in more than half of municipalities, meaning that half of Lithuania is in the stage of exponential growth.

Since last Friday, the number of new cases has been growing, compared to the same day a week before, except for Monday, and if such a tempo remains, the daily number of cases might reach 2,000 by the end of April.

The number of new cases has tripled in Vilnius County and the number of people in hospitals has almost doubled since six weeks ago. And the hospital bed occupancy rate in Kaunas County has gone up by a third from last week.

The review points out that more than one thousand (1,116) new coronavirus cases were recorded on Tuesday, and the daily number of new cases rose from 1,000 to 2,000 over a period of three weeks in November.

Lithuania should receive around 375,000 vaccines over the next three weeks and the country should step up vaccination of over-65s (there are still 295,000 unvaccinated people in this group), therefore, April will be a critical month for vaccination in this age group, the review states.

It is also stressed in the document that the healthcare sector's experience shows that once a sector is vaccinated, it in fact becomes resistant to further growth of coronavirus cases.

The daily number of COVID-19-related deaths continues to go down in Lithuania and now stands at 16 on average.