"I certainly don’t rule out that soon, maybe even in late March, the government will discuss not just any particular mask issue but, in general, ways to exit the pandemic period and move into the endemic period, as it seems that we can already tentatively hope that we have a basis for that," the prime minister said at the parliament on Thursday.
In her words, "the number of cases has stopped falling and is even rising slightly" amid the ongoing gradual lifting of pandemic restrictions.
"But not too much, and more importantly, we don’t see a significant increase in hospitalization rates, which is much more important than the case rates," Simonyte said.
The number of new coronavirus cases, which had been rising rapidly since the end of last year, started slowly going down in February. That was also the time when the record-high number for new cases was reached, with more than 14 000 coronavirus infections detected a day.
Official statistics show that the 14-day average of new primary coronavirus cases per population of 100,000 now stands at 2,200, with slight fluctuations.
At the same time, hospitals are treating 68 ICU patients with COVID-19 and their number is steadily going down.