Filenews 1 December 2021 - by Marilena Panagi
Finally, in the proposals of the Minister of Health, teleworking, with a percentage of 20% in each company or public service, without of course being considered certain that this proposal will be approved by the other members of the Council of Ministers, who at last week's meeting had spoken out against the reinstatement of this measure.
Finally in the proposals and the ban on organizing Christmas events indoors and shopping centres, as the proposal of Michalis Chatzipandelas in the Council of Ministers (it will finally meet tomorrow instead of today), will provide for the organization of events only outdoors and only with the demonstration of a negative 48-hour test by all attendees vaccinated and unvaccinated.
Data should be considered the measures already begun to be implemented in schools and especially in primary education, as well as everything that is in force and concerns children 6-11 years old, but the implementation of the decision of the national committee for vaccination of children 5-11 years old should not be taken for granted at all, since the Ministry of Health will wait first to receive the required quantities of vaccines from the manufacturing company and then proceed to relevant proposal to the Ministerial. This is not to be expected before 20 December.
In addition to the next decree, there will probably be the decision to abolish all SafePass for people who have completed 7 months from their full vaccination but have not proceeded to a third dose booster. This measure may be included as it is or with slight variations in the next decree, since anyway the decision is for its implementation in mid-December.
Within the next decree, since the mandatory PCR test has already begun to be applied to all passengers arriving in Cyprus via airports, regardless of origin, as well as the mandatory examination either by PCR test or by Rapid test for all passengers of cruise ships and private vessels arriving at ports and marinas.
As far as the borders are concerned, the decision of the Minister will depend on the outcome of the consultation between the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot sides, through the bi-communal committee on health. However, the requirement for molecular testing of all non-Cypriot citizens who enter the free areas through the barricades should be taken for granted.
Finally, the recommendations that the Minister of Health will submit to the Ministry may include other measures that had been implemented in the past and aim at reducing the risk of further spread of the virus among citizens, such as the suspension of reservist presentations to the army.
The possibility of adding more proposals until tomorrow's meeting of the Ministerial Is not at all remote, since as we are informed, the Minister of Health has in his hands additional proposals both from scientists and from other organized bodies involved in the health sector.
Of course, everything will depend on the decisions of the Minister, since in any case the proposals of the Minister of Health depend on the intentions of the other ministers, who act, in many cases depending on their own portfolio.
In the meantime, the eye always remains on public hospitals, where the number of hospitalized patients remains stable above 110 in recent days with a slow but gradual increase in the number of seriously ill patients and especially intubated patients in the Intensive Care Unit.
As stated in his statements to the "F" the spokesman of the CySEC Charalambos Charilaou, "the situation in public hospitals is still manageable while we observe in recent days that the number of unvacated patients with coronavirus has increased". At the same time, Mr. Charilaou said, "we are monitoring the data with the mutation "Omikron" in terms of both its transmissibility, but mainly the morbidity it causes. It is too early of course to be able to have safe conclusions but we as an Organization and the public hospitals must be prepared for this scenario as well."
Dozens of spontaneous questions from citizens
The psychological state and the need of citizens for dialogue and for seeking answers is reflected over the last twenty-four hours in a very intense way on the page "Let's discuss it... is from", which has been operating since last July on FaceBook by the Federation of Cyprus Patient Associations. As the OSAK announced yesterday, "in recent days, society has been sending its own message in all directions. The page receives a barrage of questions from citizens, who ask their questions about the pandemic, the protection measures, the measures decided by the Government, the vaccines, the vaccination, the third dose". As the Patients' Federation points out, "in the past two months the flow of questions on its page had decreased significantly. The return of citizens, without any re-announcement or information on its part, sends its own strong message. Citizens need dialogue, they need answers."
At the same time, the OSAK, proceeded yesterday to the announcement of the launch of its new campaign, which has the slogan "in war we do not go with a single weapon, let's take our fate in our hands.... 'vaccine –plus'.
As the OSAK explains, "last week the World Health Organization gave its slogan "vaccine - plus", signalling that vaccination is only ONE of the weapons we have in our hands in the war against the pandemic, calling imperative the simultaneous faithful observance of all other protection measures" and adds: "the division and division of citizens into vaccinated and unvaccinated has led even the State to controversial decisions and practices".
"Vaccines – plus" means "vaccinations plus distancing measures, self-protection and hygiene measures", says the OSAK and cites data from international studies, based on which: "the use of masks, reduces by 53% the risk of infection and social distancing can reduce by 25% the spread of the virus".
949 vaccinated - 1,649 unvaccinated
Meanwhile, the need for faithful implementation of all personal protection measures continues to emerge from the official data of the tracing unit, based on which in the week of November 20-26, 949 fully vaccinated people were identified positive to the virus, while the number of unvaccinated reaches 1,649.
During the same week, three more re-infections were also recorded, after two people without a vaccination history and one vaccinated person tested positive for the second time in more than 6 months since their first time infected with the coronavirus.
Chains of cases were detected in hotels, banking institutions, private and semi-state service organizations and schools in all provinces.
Most of the positive cases during this week concerned the ages of 20-59 years, while the number of positive cases in the age groups 6-11 and 12-17 years did not show significant differences from the week that preceded it. Specifically, in the 6-11 age group, 313 cases were recorded (305 last week) while in the 12-17 age group 284 cases were detected (297 the previous week). Encouragingly, the number of elderly people infected with the virus during the week under review was relatively small, since 55 people 70-74 years old, 43 people aged 75-79, 12 people aged 80-84 years and 11 people aged 80 and over had tested positive for the virus.
The increase in the number of daily cases is clearly reflected in the relevant tables of the tracing unit, based on which, in the week 30/10 – 5/11, 1,380 new cases were recorded, in the week of November 6-12, 1,565 cases had been recorded, from 13 to 19 November 2,359 new cases were identified and last week 20-26 November the number of new positive cases that had been identified rose to 2,547 with the upward trend continuing as well this week based on the results announced until yesterday.
