Cyprus on Wednesday saw a significant drop in confirmed coronavirus cases as they dropped to 20 from 33 the previous day with no new deaths reported.
The 20 new cases were detected from a record 2312 lab tests.
Some 1758 of the tests were carried out within the scheme to test frontline workers, such as health professionals and those working in the food and beverage chain of supply.
These tests revealed three new coronavirus cases.
In the parallel routine tracing method, some 8 people were identified after tests on contacts of known COVID-19 cases, while another 7 cases were people repatriated on Monday from Bulgaria and the UK.
Two more cases were reported by private labs after individuals requested to be tested.
Regarding frontline workers, the authorities have carried out 3,034 out of 20,000 planned tests as of Saturday when the scheme kicked-off.
Health authorities seek to complete the testing scheme within 20 days.
The Health Ministry said it is pushing to perform more tests on a daily basis, urging people entitled to get tested to call for an appointment.
According to Wednesday’s data, the total number of cases is 715, including 10 in the British Bases.
These cases were detected from a total of some 23,000 tests by the Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics, the Microbiological Lab at Nicosia General Hospital and private labs.
Health Ministry advisor Dr Leontios Kostrikis said figures for the last 24 hours have made health authorities feel confident as the cases found from tracing contacts is dropping.
Free tests
He called on workers in the food and beverage industry to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the Health Ministry’s scheme and get tested for free.
He repeated calls to the public to continue abiding by social distancing rules and stay home to allow authorities to make their task of identifying infected people through tracing easier.
Dr Marios Loizou of the Cyprus State Health Services Organisation said there are 24 patients being treated at the Famagusta Referral hospital, two in the Special care Unit while two have been discharged.
There are nine patients on ventilators, three at Limassol General ICU and six at Nicosia General ICU. Four more patients are in hospital wards.
The condition of all patients in the ICUs is critical but stable.
Loizou wanted to thank the public for their contribution to fighting the spread of the virus.
“We, in the healthcare system, asked for time and you gave it to us. We were able to equip our public healthcare system to cope with the incoming numbers of patients”.
He said that wards and hospital units were set up in record time, noting that what would normally take years to build, has been set-up in a matter of weeks.
He did, however, note that hospitals under pressure, and have been working to their limits for the past six weeks.
“Our ability to cope is directly linked to the proper staffing of departments based on the new realities. The virus, even if we wanted to, will not allow us to let our guard down.”
Loizou said that any talk of relaxing measures in the future should take into consideration the capacity of the healthcare system to cope with the second wave of COVID-19 cases.
