Police on Tuesday said they caught a man from Nicosia who was supposed to self-isolate as a contact of a person with coronavirus but was not at home when they went to check up on him.
The man was reported and is being investigated.
According to police spokesman Christos Andreou, the man was on the list with three other people who had to self-isolate. The health ministry’s epidemiology monitoring unit asked police to check on them because they could not trace them.
Three of the people were in Nicosia and one in Larnaca.
The three people on the list were found to be in their homes when officers went there but one man from Nicosia was not there. He arrived home while the officers were there.
He reportedly claimed he had not encountered anyone while outside.
Andreou told the Cyprus News Agency that in cases when the health ministry cannot locate people that are supposed to be in self-isolation, they ask help from the police.
He also said police would be carrying out random checks to make sure that people who need to be in self-isolation are doing just that. The health ministry will send police a list with these people, he said.
Justice Minister Emily Yiolitis announced on Monday that the police would be conducting intensive random spot checks all over Cyprus to confirm that people from category C countries and close contacts of confirmed patients are indeed self-isolating at the accommodation address they provided upon entry to the country.
The stricter measures follow a rise in local cases mainly in Limassol, including the creation of clusters started by people who did not self-isolate when arriving from category C countries.
Authorities also using social media to prevent the holding of events that could attract large crowds.
According to deputy head of the state health services Irodotos Irodotou officials of the e-commerce department monitor social media and trace advertisements on events that violate the measures in place and forward them to the police.
He told state broadcaster CyBC they were able to stop some events that were expecting large numbers of people.
“On some occasions, we have forced organisers to remove their ads from social media,” Irodotou said.
