ZAGREB, 22 Oct 2021 - Five members of the government's Scientific Council on Friday distanced themselves from all statements made by Council member Gordan Lauc about the coronavirus pandemic, notably his latest messages that the pandemic is over and that only elderly people should get vaccinated. 

"We fully distance ourselves from all statements about the pandemic made by Gordan Lauc since the summer of 2020," says the declaration signed by Andreja Ambriović Ristov, Petra Klepac, Branko Kolarić and academicians Nenad Ban and Igor Rudan.

They in particular distanced themselves from Lauc's messages in which he declared the pandemic over or claimed that there are circumstances in which it is better to get infected. Lauc downplays the effectiveness of the epidemiological measures and the need for their application, recommends vaccination only for persons above a certain age and insinuates a connection between the increased mortality rate in Croatia and vaccination, they said.

"Anyone who says that any one of us could agree with Gordan Lauc's statements about the pandemic is not telling the truth," the signatories said.

The five members of the Scientific Council said that "their views on the pandemic are based on the existing knowledge from relevant professions and constantly evolving scientific knowledge, which often requires changes and adjustments of the COVID-19 response strategy, which then need to be explained to the public."

"That is why a responsible interpretation of scientifically accepted knowledge is essential at any time during the pandemic in order to keep the public properly informed and to protect human lives and maintain the economic activity of Croatian citizens as much as possible," the declaration says.

Speaking in an interview with N1 television of his statement that the existing vaccines poorly protect against COVID-19, Lauc said that vaccination is not a mechanism to stop the spread of the virus, but that the vaccine provides excellent protection against serious forms of the virus. He said that he is a scientist whom the government has asked for an opinion, but that he is not a government employee and need not obey the government.

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ZAGREB, 21 Oct 2021 - Health Minister Vili Beroš on Thursday criticized comments by a member of the government's Scientific Council, Gordan Lauc, related to vaccination, saying that Council members should send a clear message and be aware that their opinions could be harmful.

Beroš added, however, that Lauc has the right to his own opinion.

"It is bad when everyone has the same opinion. That would show that we made a mistake somewhere. But I am critical of what is made public. I appeal for that to not be the case and that everyone who participates in the Scientific Council be aware that by presenting their opinion on social networks they could be doing harm," Beroš told reporters after a cabinet meeting.

He underscored that that is why he personally appealed to members of the Council to send clear messages and not to confuse citizens.

Commenting on Lauc's post on Facebook that "the consensus of the Scientific Council is that vaccines are a poor protection against infection," Beroš said that everyone has the right to their own opinion but the common stance after the Council's meetings, which is a voluntary advisory body for the government, is made by a government representative.

Asked if Lauc would be ousted from the Council, Beroš said that Lauc is responsible for his own opinions but that he believes "individuals will realize that expressing their opinions is damaging and that that will change."

First step in reform is to combine public procurement

Beroš also spoke about the proposed reform of the health system which the ministry has sent to interested institutions for their ideas and proposals.

He announced that as part of the reform, regardless of amendments to the law on healthcare, the first step will be to combine public procurement in health institutions.

"A precondition to combine public procurement is their ownership structure because the ministry and state do not have the option to impose any obligation on county hospitals to join in combined public procurement. Combined public procurement is the first step we will deal with and certain steps have already been taken in that regard," he said, adding that the results would quickly be visible.

"Whether it will be necessary to centralize county institutions or not is still a matter of dispute. We will see what the final draft decision will be after consultations," he said.

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ZAGREB, Dec 12, 2020 - Government spokesman Marko Milic said on Saturday the government did not have information "about any threats" against a member of the government's Scientific Advisory Council, Gordan Lauc, who earlier in the day said in a Facebook post that some government ministers had openly threatened him.

"We are not aware of any threats and have not been informed about them by anyone," Milic said in response to a query from Hina after Lauc said in a Facebook post that some government ministers had openly threatened him.

In his Facebook post Lauc announced that he would launch legal action over lies and untruths which, he claims, are published about him in public.

Commenting on his role in the government's Scientific Advisory Council for the fight against coronavirus, Lauc said that he is not "the government's hireling" and that during the pandemic he had experienced "unpleasant situations, including open threats from some ministers."

After it denied having any information about the threats, the government noted that Lauc had been a member of the Council since March and that cooperation with him would continue with the aim of controlling and curbing the COVID-19 epidemic.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 1st of November, 2020, Croatian professor Gordan Lauc discussed various things to do with the ongoing situation with the new coronavirus. He looked at what stage of the pandemic we're in, whether or not another lockdown would help us and why some develop a more severe clinical picture and some go through a mild form of the disease.

"One day we'll learn about this pandemic in school, and it will teach us that our real enemies are pathogenic bacteria and viruses," said Professor Gordan Lauc at the end of his interview for HRT.

Croatia seems to be climbing in the number of infected people, in Zagreb every second person tested returns a positive result, is the situation really so dramatic?

There's a really large number of infected people in Zagreb and all of Croatia at the moment. My personal estimate is that at least 5%, and probably more, of people in Zagreb are actively infected. This means that the situation is really dramatic and that we all now have to be maximally responsible and be careful not to get infected ourselves, but also not to infect others because a lot of people are infectious without even knowing it. But the night is darkest just before dawn, and we can already see signs that the exit from this tunnel is in sight.

After a very large acceleration in the spread of the epidemic over the last few weeks, we can see the first clear signs of a change in trend and a slowdown in the spread of the pandemic. This is especially evident in Zagreb, where the daily number of cases hasn't been growing for a week now. But we mustn't forget that the increase in the number of hospitalised and dead people is two to three weeks behind the number of newly infected, so in Croatia, unfortunately, in the next few weeks, we're going to have increasing battles because of seriously ill people, as well as people dying.

Countries in Europe are mostly opting for the so-called lockdown, closures, curfews, what exactly do we get with that?

The virus is spread by it being passed from one person to another. Without contact between people there can be no spread of the virus. All governments across Europe are taking steps to reduce this contact. In some countries these are well thought out and measured measures, while in some other countries they're panic reactions.

I think that we in Croatia have a well-balanced policy of adapting our measures to the real situation. This is best reflected in the fact that despite the fact that Croatia had one of the mildest measures in Europe all summer, today we have significantly fewer infected people per million inhabitants than, let's say, the Czech Republic, Belgium or Slovenia.

Some think that Croatia should have stricter measures, but from the examples of countries such as Argentina or Peru, and some cities in Europe, we can see that the imposed measures don't actually achieve the desired effect. For example, after 5 months of a very strict lockdown, Argentina has almost caught up with Brazil (which had much milder measures) in terms of the total number of deaths per million inhabitants, and according to current trends, it will soon overtake it. In addition, Manchester, which has been under very strict measures for weeks, has very similar numbers as Zagreb, where the measures are much milder.

How much do we know about this virus today, and how much do we not know?

Unfortunately, we still know very little about viruses. Not just about SARS-CoV-2, but also about the flu and thousands of other viruses which live within us. As we haven't had a serious pandemic for 100 years, unfortunately, not enough has been invested in virus research. In the last eight months, of course, this has changed drastically and now a lot of people are researching the new SARS-CoV-2 virus.

We’ve learned a lot about it, but there is still a lot more unknown about it than there is known. For example, we still don't know in advance who will develop a severe and who a milder form of the disease, and we don't have effective therapies.

The Sars-CoV-2 virus causes different symptoms and different clinical pictures, and now it's clear that it doesn't even depend so much on the age of the patient… Is there any answer to why this is so?

Unfortunately, we still don’t know much about what happens in the body after we become infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Age, or rather the metabolic status of the organism, is still the best predictor of severe disease, and young and healthy people with severe disease are an exception.

For example, a recently published study showed that about 10% of severe forms of the disease can be explained by the presence of autoimmune antibodies to interferon beta. This is a very rare disorder, but when a lot of people become infected then this otherwise invisible disorder becomes very visible indeed.

There are certainly some other predispositions that we have yet to discover. For example, our research shows that differences in the way people glycosylate their antibodies are also associated with a more severe form of COVID-19, and that's something we can influence, for example, with a healthier lifestyle.

One of the important things this pandemic has taught us is that it is extremely important to think about your health because people with diseases that are the result of an unhealthy lifestyle are much more likely to die from COVID-19 when compared to healthy people.

Will the Croatian health care system survive this?

The way things are at the moment, the health care system should be able to cope with this, but it very much depends on how we behave in the coming weeks. People who are infected today may get sick and eventually end up in the hospital in 10 to 15 days. Thus, the number of newly hospitalised and deceased people will certainly increase significantly for at least another two weeks.

The number of people in hospital will depend on how we behave in the coming weeks. If growth continues, there is indeed the possibility that there will be no place in hospitals for all those who do become ill.

One day we'll learn about this pandemic, just like we do with the Spanish flu, in schools. Or maybe we swon't? Will we now pay more attention to the viruses around us and better investigate them? That is, will humanity be more prepared for the next pandemic?

This pandemic will surely be remembered as the great pandemic of 2021. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that it will be 2021, not 2020, because the hardest part of the pandemic is still waiting for us in the coming months. Fortunately, this is not really such a terrible pandemic as far as the virus itself is concerned, because it could very easily happen that a virus which is much more deadly than this one comes along. I hope we learn some lessons and start investing more in fighting our real enemies, which are pathogenic bacteria and viruses, rather than in weapons to fight other people,'' Professor Gordan Lauc concluded.

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As Vecernji list writes on the 4th of June, 2020, Dr Gordan Lauc took to Facebook to explain just why the new coronavirus spread as quickly as it did.

''The good side of this knowledge is that we now know that the vast majority of people who become infected will overcome the disease without any major problems. This is also great news for our tourist season, because even if a certain number of infected people do show up, there will probably not be many seriously ill people,'' wrote Gordan Lauc.

Gordan Lauc also posted a link to a scientific paper on Facebook which he considers important for understanding the new coronavirus.

Namely, Gordan Lauc points out that research shows that at least 40 percent, and in some cases even more than 80 percent, of people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus either don't develop any symptoms or only mild ones. That explains, he believes, why the virus initially seemed to spread very quickly.

''The path to the truth is not easy an easy one, especially when you're researching something new and unknown. But what distinguishes science from pseudoscience is that in science, we're constantly questioning the current knowledge, looking for new evidence and making new hypotheses based on it.

Scientists know this and are accustomed to this form of re-examination, but unfortunately, in the flood of information about the coronavirus during this pandemic, sometimes in public and in the media, the difference between what is considered scientific truth and what is yet to be proven gets lost. An unusual feature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is that it causes almost no symptoms in some people, while in others it causes a severe disease that can often be fatal.These asymptomatic cases have significantly contributed to the spread of the virus, while confusing scientists who couldn't understand how the virus spreads so fast and jumps from person to person in such vague ways.

A significant scientific paper was published today that should close one of these unknown chapters. The link to the work is below, and here I'm going to convey only some of the most significant conclusions: At least 40 percent (and even more than 80 percent in some cases) of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 virus (i.e. positive on a PCR test) will either not develop symptoms, or the symptoms they do develop will be mild. These people will not even know they're infected and will be able to transmit the virus to others. This explains why, at first, it seemed to us that the virus was spreading very quickly. It actually didn’t spread so quickly, but we tested more and more people and found more positive cases that had been infected previously, only no one knew that.

The good side of this realisation is that we now know that the vast majority of people who become infected will overcome the disease without any major problems. This is also great news for our tourist season, because even if a certain number of infected people do show up, there probably won't be many seriously ill people (something similar to what we saw recently on Brač).

The downside is that if/when the virus returns to Europe, it will be very difficult to control the epidemic by targeted testing and the isolation of the contacts of infected people. That way, we'll be able to find, at most, only half of the potential vectors of the disease. In fact, the only thing we'll have left at our disposal will be the so-called Japanese model in which we will all have to try to be as responsible as possible and try not to spread the virus,'' Gordan Lauc wrote in a statement.

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