A mobile unit in Limassol will increase the number of tests carried out there in restaurants, virologist Dr Leontios Kostrikis said on Monday, as the city’s mayor said a localised lockdown was something he did not want to think about.
Speaking to CyBC radio, Kostrikis said there are currently four chains in Limassol, three of which are active and the fourth which is unknown.
“The epicentre is at the Limassol Marina and began at the gym. This case spread in society and then a case was found at a restaurant in the marina and then a shipping company in Limassol.
“They seem to be independent for now,” Kostrikkis said but the infections seem to have started with foreigners who work in shipping companies in Limassol.
He said that at the Marina restaurant four cases were delivery employees. “If everyone wore masks then we wouldn’t have these infections,” he said.
Currently, all scenarios are on the table, he added and as a first step there will be an increase in testing at Limassol restaurants, with a mobile unit collecting samples.
Speaking to the Cyprus News Agency (CNA), Limassol Mayor Nicos Nicolaides called on the public to behave seriously and responsibly “to protect everything we have built all this time in Limassol.”
As a last result would be repeating measures of the past, the mayor said. “I don’t even want to talk about a lockdown.”
“It isn’t a matter of me being worried, we are concerned. We are concerned until this whole situation with the coronavirus blows over.”
Asked why he thought there was a spike in the number of cases in certain points of Limassol, Nicolaides said people across Cyprus, not only in Limassol, relaxed.
Limassol in particular carried an additional risk “as it is a city with heavy traffic to and from abroad, due to the fact that there are foreigners who work and travel back and forth.”
The mayor said there may be consequent announcements on action to be taken, perhaps making mention to groups of people that appear to have “let go” a bit too much.
“Seriousness, responsibility, individual protection measures and social distancing are needed, to protect everything we have built in Limassol.”
Nicolaides called on people with symptoms to contact their GP.
Last week, clusters of cases were found in Limassol, with five employees in Wagamama restaurant testing positive.
Five cases were identified on Saturday which were contacts of people who tested positive in Limassol earlier in the week. Four are contacts of one of the two people tested positive on Friday.
The fifth case is a contact of one of the people who tested positive on Thursday, which was itself a contact of a woman who tested positive on Tuesday.
