Cyprus reported three new coronavirus cases late on Sunday, all from among people who had returned to Cyprus in the past few days, hours after the Ministry of Health said in its initial daily report that there had been no new infections of SARS-CoV-2.
This is the second time in a week that the ministry has revised its report, with testing labs delaying submitting their data or the ministry itself having problems computing the information.
The report has raised alarm among officials concerned that reopening the airports to scheduled flights and visitors, albeit from countries boasting low levels of the deadly COVID-19, may have been in haste, as the virus has returned in many countries.
The ministry said that all three new cases were from repatriates, Cypriots or permanent resident of Cyprus who returned home during the past few days. The cases were found among 58 tests on repatriates, raising the total number of tests for the day to 1,252 and the total cases to 983.
The health ministry said that the process of contact tracing is already underway and all protocol measures have been taken.
Earlier in the day, official were celebrating what seemed to be the second successive day of zero cases, the first time it has managed to do that since the outbreak began on March 9.
Health authorities said in the earlier report they detected zero COVID-19 cases, after conducting 1,194 lab tests, repeating Saturday’s results.
It would have been the sixth time that Cyprus has reported zero cases.
The Health Ministry said that the epidemiological data resulted from testing 42 samples from contact tracing of known cases, 331 samples from testing passengers, 256 from employees in hairdressers, barbershops, beauty institutes, tattoo parlours and restaurants.
Also coming back negative was 141 tests on students and school staff, 133 samples from the General Hospitals’ Microbiology Labs, 191 tests on people belonging to special groups referred by their GPs through the public health centres and 100 more through private initiative.
Two patients were treated at Famagusta General which operates as the reference hospital for COVID-19, while another two patients continued to be treated on a ventilator at Nicosia General Hospital ICU.
