Cyprus Mail 19 November 2020 - by Nick Theodoulou
Experts advising the government on the pandemic appear to be cautiously optimistic as cases seem to be stabilising although clusters in Nicosia have caused concern, they said on Thursday.
“The picture that I have up until this moment… is that we are seeing a stabilisation [in cases], by looking at the rate of positivity and the epidemiological curve [we] appear to have reached a peak,” health committee member Georgios Nikolopoulos from the Cyprus University’s medical school told Sigma.
He emphasised that while cases remain high there has been a record number of tests being carried out over the past few days.
This view was supported by clinical epidemiologist and paediatrician, Zoi-Dorothea Pana, who said: “So, yes indeed we continue to have a high number of daily cases but that works out accordingly, and what we can say is that by looking at the latest data there appears to be some stabilisation.”
On Tuesday 228 people tested positive but notably, out of a record 8,887 tests – double the number usually seen on days with a high number of tests. A similar trend was witnessed on Wednesday, with 198 people testing positive but out of 7,049 PCR tests
The surge in tests being carried out has largely been driven by workers exempt from the travel ban to Limassol and Paphos who were getting tested ahead of police checks at roadblocks into the two districts.
Nikolopoulos also touched on another important side effect of the programme, noting that despite the high number of tests in Paphos and Limassol there has not been a surge in the number of people testing positive.
He noted that Limassol and Paphos have been showing improvements, the latter in particular.
The health ministry’s data from Wednesday showed that from 1,379 tests taken by workers in Limassol there were nine positive results. From the 470 tests done in Paphos under the same programme there were no positive results.
At the moment, however, there is concern over two outbreaks in Nicosia, linked to a care home in Latsia and a high school in the same area. Nine people have tested positive at the Timothio care home in Nicosia and several pupils at the school.
Even so, the situation is not yet too serious in Nicosia, Nikolopoulos said, as it is aided by a stabilisation of cases islandwide which reduced the burden on the contact tracing team – allowing for more typical interventions to take place.
Asked whether Nicosia may be face particular disadvantages should there be a surge, he said that: “I don’t think there’s a particular difference between say Nicosia and Limassol, perhaps that it is the capital and there are key government services through which there may be a greater number of contacts.”
Nikolopoulos focused instead on the healthcare system, which he said remains in a strong condition.
He acknowledged that the system is indeed burdened but emphasised that it has so far avoided a dramatic increase in hospitalisations, as has been the case elsewhere in Europe. He referenced Greece which has seen the number of patients intubated increasing each day, a trend which has not been so noticeable in Cyprus.
