Filenews 25 February 2021
The agreement reached with Israel will enter into force from 1 April, said the Minister of Health, Konstantinos Ioannou, commenting on reports that Israelis are expressing an interest in spending the Easter holidays in Cyprus. It is recalled that the agreement provides that those Israelis vaccinated with one of the three vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency will be able to travel to Cyprus without being subjected to a molecular test in advance, while also ensuring that they are not quarantined.
Mr Ioannou said all other measures in place at airports with regard to other countries, such as testing, were still in place.
Referring to the agreement with Israel, the Minister of Health said that Greece has also moved on to the same agreement and that other countries are moving in this direction. "It may not have been agreed at European level for other practical reasons to issue a single certificate, but that does not mean that some countries cannot take such action," he said.
He stressed that all other arrangements for passengers arriving at airports remain in place. "At the moment there is no one who arrives at the airport and does not have a negative PCR test," the Health Minister said, adding that the ECDC categorization for EU countries has been in place since 1 March. "We will do on all flights that will come - even from the Green Category - sample tests," stressed Mr Ioannou, noting that for non-EU countries, their epidemiological picture is assessed by the Ministry of Health.
"We have been taking all the necessary measures since the beginning of the pandemic at airports and we have the strictest measures in relation to all EU countries. Even for the new strain of the virus, since December we have taken measures at the airport to quarantine from the UK in hotels that are valid until the end of the month and from the other countries, three days self-contained," said the Minister of Health.
In conclusion, Mr Ioannou stated that according to the information received from ecdc on 83 positive samples, the analysis of which was completed, the British strain was detected at 28, i.e. about 1 in 3.
Source: eyenews
