Cyprus Mail 7 April 2020 - by Iacovos Constantinou
(Photo: CNA) The Institute of Neurology and genetics: Cyprus has currently done 9,066 tests well above most countries
When Cyprus’ coronavirus related stats are compared with a number of other countries it appears the island is faring much better than most.
Of the 12 countries selected by the Cyprus Mail, the island ranks 3rd in when it comes to confirmed cases per 1 million population, clocking in at 369. Only Turkey (321) whose infected cases are rising rapidly over the past couple of days, and Greece (166) have fewer cases in that category.
Spain, Italy and France are at the other end of the graph.
Malta remains till today the only country with no reported deaths despite having a higher number of confirmed cases than the three countries with the least number of infected cases, namely Cyprus, Turkey and Greece.
After Malta, only Israel has fewer reported deaths per 1 million population than Cyprus.
Spain, France and Italy are in the worst position in this case as well.
Malta’s Prime Minister Robert Abela said that the main reason why his country is managing the situation so well is because they took pre-emptive measures:
‘“We pre-empted the race and started running early,” he said. “We didn’t approach this like it wasn’t going to affect us, and we wanted to give the health authorities the right amount of time to handle this and even be prepared in case there was a spike in cases.”
One of the reasons why Malta has no deaths yet may be down to these measures, one of them being the extensive coronavirus testing (23,459) that the Maltese government has undergone so far outstripping all other 11 countries.
Israel, the country with second most coronavirus tests, has so far undergone just over half of what Malta has with 12,677.
Cyprus has currently done 9,066 tests well above most countries with the exceptions of Germany, Italy, Israel and Malta.
