Cyprus Mail 1 December 2020 - by George Psyllides
Cyprus can expect the first deliveries of Covid-19 vaccines before the end of the month if everything goes according to schedule and pharmaceutical companies receive their approvals, members of the government’s advisory committee said on Wednesday.
Speaking during a news conference, Zoi Dorothea Pana said vaccine distribution could start this month “if all goes well.”
Pana said two companies, Astra Zeneca and Biontech Pfizer, have pledged to start supplying countries with their vaccine in December.
Cyprus expects to receive 1,192,043 doses of the Astra Zeneca vaccine starting in the fourth quarter of this year, through to the second quarter of 2022.
Similarly, delivery of 391,637 doses of the Biontech Pfizer vaccine is expected to start this month and continue until the third quarter of 2021. Both vaccines are dispensed in two doses per person.
The first people to receive the vaccine are health professionals in the public and private sectors, followed by population groups who have a high-risk of serious illness if they are infected by the virus.
Essential workers like police, cleaners, public transport workers, food supply staff, and so on will be next in line due to the risk of them spreading the virus because of the nature of their work.
Pana could not immediately say how many people would have to be vaccinated to achieve the so-called herd immunity.
“We can’t accurately say at this stage what the percentage of coverage should be,” she said, adding that scientists would have a better picture of the situation when the vaccinations get underway.
Scientists agree however, that certain protective measures like masks and physical distancing would have to remain in place for longer.
The island has since a steep rise in cases in the past couple of months, forcing authorities to put stricter measures in place in a bid to rein in the spread.
Assistant professor of internal medicine, infection prevention and control Constantinos Tsioutis, said, however, Cyprus has not reached a point that would force the authorities to go into full lockdown, one of the few EU countries not to do so during the second wave of the pandemic.
It has neither reached “critical level” in terms of health provision, despite the recent rise in admissions.
According to committee member Giorgos Nikolopoulos, in the past couple of weeks hospitals have seen nine to ten admissions per day “without seeing any tendency of abatement.”
Some 120 people were currently being treated in hospitals, 16 in ICUs.
Nikolopoulos said stricter measures in Limassol and Paphos had yielded results but at the same time cases rose in Nicosia, Larnaca, and Famagusta.
While the R number — the number of people that one infected person will pass on a virus to, on average – has dropped below one in Limassol and Paphos, it has risen over one in the other three districts.
Between November 14 and 27, authorities detected 3,009 cases across the Republic. Broken down, Nicosia has seen 1,145 cases per 100,000, Limassol, 1,050, Paphos 123, Famagusta, 218, Larnaca 376.
“We would like to reduce it but at present continues to be at stable high levels,” Nikolopoulos said.
The experts warned that scenes seen over Friday and the weekend with people queuing in shops and churches – to receive holy communion — did not help reduce infections and ease restrictions.
“One would have expected that nine months into the pandemic we would have understood our individual and collective responsibility, the need to protect ourselves and others,” Tsioutis said. “These actions are dangerous to health and the effectiveness of the measures.
