Filenews 15 April 2021
All licensed vaccines are safe and we urge people to come and get vaccinated said today the Minister of Health Mr. Konstantinos Ioannou, noting that it is not the vaccine that matters, but vaccination.
In statements to reporters at the State Fair vaccination centre, where Members of the Cabinet were vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine, in the presence of the President of the Republic, the Minister of Health said that "it is vaccination that saves lives, it is vaccination that prevents and protects us from a serious condition, let us have confidence in the scientists, the European Medicines Agency and the scientists of our country who guide our decisions.
All licensed vaccines are safe, we urge people to come and get vaccinated. It doesn't matter which vaccine, it's the vaccination that matters.
Already, these days we will exceed 200 thousand vaccines and our goal is to get to the coveted vaccination coverage soon, so that we can return to normality, take our lives back into our own hands."
In response to a question, Mr Ioannou clarified that "a few days ago I said that at the end of May we would have the necessary immunity, not total immunity, but an immunity that would allow us to relax further and reach normality. In the so-called herd immunity, i.e. vaccination of 70% of the population, we expect to arrive at the end of June, with the doses we have agreed to receive."
In a journalist's remark that the situation in state hospitals is deteriorating, the Minister said that "we have been urging people to cooperate with us for some time in observing the measures, because the situation has been and is fragile. Unfortunately, as we said two weeks ago, we are seeing an increase in positivity. It's disturbing. The consequence of the increase in cases is the increase in hospitalizations and intensive ones, which have not reached their limits, but there is an objective difficulty. And it's very easy to do that, it can be a matter of days. And it's what we keep saying, the situation can get out of hand.
So it's important and we urge people to adhere to personal hygiene measures, to adhere to protocols. The measures are as effective as the world follows them, otherwise they will not be effective and at this stage we see that there is not a high compliance rate. This is also shown by the tracing, by the feedback we get from the tracing. People don't declare their contacts, positive contacts aren't limited. There are some objective difficulties We have to understand that things are still difficult, the whole of Europe is experiencing a third, some countries and a fourth wave of pandemics. We have a month or two left until we get the necessary vaccination coverage and we have to be patient."
In a reporter's remark that the vaccination portal appears to have been in trouble this morning, the Minister of Health said that these issues are being handled by the Secretary of State for Innovation.
Asked whether the vaccination programme was affected by the delay in the use of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, the Health Secretary replied "very little because the total doses the company would take by June were 50 thousand. Temporary suspension is a measure taken by the same company until the European Medicines Agency has determined whether or not its use is safe, as it has ruled for the rest.
We are awaiting a final opinion next week and we will move on. But it doesn't really affect us as Cyprus."
Source: eyenews
