COVID19: Cyprus has upswing in new cases

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Cyprus saw a 52% daily rise in new COVID-19 cases with 29 announced Tuesday from 19 the previous day, taking the total to 495 since the outbreak last month.

Health authorities said that 22 of the new cases came from tracing contacts of those already infected, three were detected from 371 tests at the Paphos cluster in the last two days and four cases are being investigated.

Tuesday’s 29 cases were detected from a total of 1,353 tests.

Ministry of Health advisor Leontios Kostrikis said Tuesday’s cases are in line with the government’s estimates that the road ahead is long but it is the right one.

Kostrikis said the results are not accidental but “attributed to the strict tracing strategy and the effectiveness of the restrictive movement. These days are especially crucial and will determine the result for the way forward”.

“The epidemiological picture we have before us allows us to look at the future with optimism but we note that nothing has been determined and we do not have the luxury to make mistakes. Our advice remains the same. Stay home and take self-protection measures”, he added.

Marios Loizou of the Cyprus State Health Services Organisation, said 31 people are being treated at COVID-19 referral hospital Famagusta General.

Three patients are in the Special Care Unit, two were discharged.

Thirteen people are on life-support at Limassol General Hospital’s ICU and another 11 at the Nicosia ICU.

Their condition is stable but critical.

Loizou said the reality is that although there is a positive picture of stabilisation of the number of cases, however, no one is immune to the virus and there is no cure yet.

He also warned that in the days to come, “we may possibly see the repercussions of the first non-compliance of measures”.

Already, he said, the number of people on ventilators at ICUs are increasing.

Cyprus, he warned, is a small country with a limited number of doctors and nursing staff, but the situation is manageable.

“To continue to be complacent is strictly forbidden. Being able to adapt as a society to the new way of life for as long as it takes is what will protect us,” said Loizou

“If we do not win this fight, there cannot be a social and economic reboot of the country or going back to the normal way of life,” he added.