MIT PhD Student: I’m Afraid This Winter Will Be the Epidemic’s Darkest Phase

MIT PhD Student Nikola Ivica

Serbia had not had strong capacity for dealing with crises even before the pandemic outbreak, and since March all segments of state administration, from the health to the financial sector, have further been weakened, Nikola Ivica, a doctoral student at the U.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has said, adding that a full lockdown is no longer a likely option. 

Commenting on the current epidemiological situation for the Nov. 16 issue of the Danas daily, Ivica also said that there is a world-wide pandemic fatigue, state treasuries are in the red, and with the arrival of colder weather most people will be spending time in poorly ventilated spaces.

According to him, “all of these are parameters for building up a perfect storm and I’m afraid that this winter will be the darkest phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“In the absence of an effective therapy and vaccine, the only way out I see is in mass testing which would help identify the main virus carriers,” Ivica said. That said, the Serbian government has made another omission, according to Ivica, by procuring ready-made tests. Purchasing individual components and creating the final product in local laboratories would have been much cheaper, Ivica concluded.