Filenews 17 November 2020 - by Marilena Panagi
The atmosphere is dangerously tense. Reactions from everywhere. The Government is monitoring, without being placed officially for the time being, while the Ministries of Health, Education and Justice have already been forced to review decisions, which have proven to have subjected several thousand citizens in recent days to enormous suffering.
Yesterday had a bad start from very early in the morning. Mileage queues formed on the motorway and thousands of workers spent hours waiting for their certificates to be examined at checkpoints. The protests were intense and the minister of justice, who found herself at the centre of the chaos that had been created in order to prevent the worst, did not take long to give instructions for sampling rather than general certificate checking.
Queues of hundreds of workers outside the few workshops they held over the weekend and yesterday, free tests for the crown. The Ministry of Health even made an apology, admitted that miscalculations had been made on the part of its officials and, moving on to new arrangements, attributed the gaps identified in the whole process to the rush of decisions.
"The decision to make a mandatory examination for crowns of all workers moving to and from Limassol and Paphos," said, among others, the Ministry of Health, "was implemented within 24 hours and was based on the estimates of competent officials of the Ministry. Although specific estimates were made as to the number of tests that would be required to be carried out, during the practical application of the procedure, and due to the mass attendance of citizens at the sampling point, it appeared that this number had to be increased for the limassol province.". The health ministry's announcement concluded with an apology "for the suffering suffered by the citizens".
To cover the large number of workers from Limassol who go to other provinces to work, the Ministry of Health has increased sampling points since this morning. In particular, in two places, a former Pissarides site and the Germasogeia River, eight different sampling stations will be operating in order to facilitate workers.
Confusion and tensions were also recorded at the points of the rapid diagnosis tests, since several citizens did not correctly interpret the announcements of the previous days and rushed to be examined in order to obtain a certificate of movement between cities, without this of course being issued under the specific sampling programme of the Ministry of Health. The event forced the Ministry to proceed during the day to new announcements.
Disruption in the field of Education. The first day of distance education for the students of Lyceums and Technical Schools in Limassol and Paphos began with problems due to codes and inconsistency, while dozens of teachers who were trapped in the queues formed at the checkpoints on the motorway, were unable to be on time in their schools. As a result, the Ministry of Education revised its decisions, moving forward in the late afternoon with new arrangements.
As a result of all this, the pandemic itself has come second, since the general mess that has prevailed since last Wednesday has overshadowed the risk of a further increase in the dispersion of the crown in Cypriot society.
Behind the scenes, the Advisory Scientific Committee, which according to information from the "F" since last Friday changed its head (a relevant announcement should be expected within the day since changes appear to be also taking place in the Epidemiological Surveillance Unit), is currently re-evaluating the epidemiological data, with the eyes of the experts on the hospitals, where they were recorded in the space of only eight days , a total of 14 deaths.
In public, however, since yesterday and despite the fact that the Government has not yet expressed any intentions for continuity since the objections and protests already recorded by economic operators are quite intense, scientists have started timidly to warn, stating implicitly but clearly that the restrictions will continue, with or without changes and during the Christmas period.
Of course, everything will depend on the results of the next few days, although as everything shows, the epidemiological picture of Cyprus since last Thursday, when the restrictions were applied, until yesterday, showed no particular changes. The scientists' assessment so far is that the results of the existing measures will begin to become apparent at the end of November.
Rapid tests began to take off.
50 positive results were obtained, most in Limassol and Larnaca
A total of fifty positive results were obtained on the first day of rapid tests in all provinces except the capital. A total of 4,151 rapid tests were carried out yesterday from 11 mobile sampling units.
Of these, 27 concerned the province of Limassol, where 2,214 tests were carried out, 14 were carried out in the province of Larnaca where 550 tests were carried out and 5 in famagusta province, where the number of tests completed was only 268.
In the city of Paphos, a total of 918 citizens were tested with rapid diagnostic tests and in only three cases the result was positive. In Chrysochous Town, only one positive result was recorded from a total of 201 tests.
As stated in its communication by the Ministry of Health, "individuals who have had a positive result with the rapid antigen detection method have been informed and remain in self-contained condition until the result is verified by the molecular test method (PCR test)".
According to the Health Ministry, a related programme is expected to be announced in the coming days for nicosia province as well.
One in 5 positive in the tracing process
A chain of eight cases of coronavirus in a nursing home, this time in Nicosia, was detected by the authorities and at the same time new cases were added to a transmission chain that had been detected in the previous days at a rehabilitation centre in Limassol.
At the same time, yesterday the results of the laboratory tests carried out through the tracing process caused concern, since one in 5 people who had been reported as contacts of confirmed cases tested positive for the coronavirus, with this ratio being the lowest recorded during the second wave of the pandemic. In particular, as part of the tracing, 369 tests were carried out yesterday, resulting in 73 new cases of coronavirus.
In total yesterday, the Health Ministry announced 107 new cases of which 99 were domestic infections and resulted in 2,903 tests. Eight cases (out of 776 samples) involved people who were examined on arrival in Cyprus. As the Ministry of Health pointed out yesterday, the number of tests carried out was low due to the non-operation of private laboratories on Sunday.
As far as hospitals are concerned, the number of patients in hospital remains consistently high. Until yesterday afternoon, a total of nine patients were in the Intensive Care Unit, while another six people were being treated in the Intensive Care Unit. A total of 77 patients were hospitalized.
As far as nursing homes are concerned, according to the Ministry of Health, seven of the cases detected through the tracing process concerned elderly people housed in the "Timothy" nursing home in nicosia province. The elderly were examined after a case was detected last week.
Also three cases, resulted from the control program of workers in nursing homes/closed structures and concern workers at the center "Ekali" in Limassol.
