in-cyprus 26 March 2020 - Bouli Hadjioannou
The 8998 SMS system to secure permission by exception to leave the house is running smoothly after coming back into operation a little after 7 pm last night, deputy minister for research and innovation Kyriakos Kokkinos told CyBC radio on Thursday morning.
He said that by 8.15 pm, about 15,000 message requests had been sent, speculating that in many cases it was people just checking to see it worked.
He added that a number of requests were rejected because those sending them did not follow the correct procedure.
The system has the capacity to accept a large number of calls,but urged the public not to abuse the system.
There were 37,000 calls within half an hour when the system was first launched on Tuesday afternoon, knocking out the system.
Authorities suspended operations for 24 hours to review the options and with the return of the system permission is given for ‘a reasonable time’ compared to the three hours initially planned.
Kokkinos reminded everyone that the service aimed to facilitate members of the public to leave the house as an exception and should not be abused.
The next two days will be critical in determining the public’s reaction and should there be abuse, restrictions will be tightened further, he warned.
For example, authorities may place a limit on the number of times a person can use the service daily.
Or they could limit the amount of time given to each individual, depending on the category chosen, something that will hinder some people, for example those living the countryside who may need longer to go to a pharmacy, he said.
“It is the individual responsibility of each and everyone of us not to abuse the system,” he again stressed.
