The government is set to ease some restrictions, but others will be in place over the Christmas holidays after President Nicos Anastasiades meets his advisors on the coronavirus Friday.
President Anastasiades will be meeting the team of scientists for the second time this week, as daily new cases of COVID-19 have remained stubbornly high with health services announcing triple-digit cases for a month now.
As expected, this year’s festive season will be different than any other, as some restrictions will be in place even if cases do start to drop in the coming days or weeks.
Regarding restrictions on free movement during Christmas, the government is expected to lift an evening curfew starting from 8 pm to 5 am, imposed in Limassol and Paphos.
Reportedly authorities will be allowing small family gatherings in homes of up to 15 people from the current 10.
As of Friday, Paphos is expected to be released from lockdown with life returning to some sort of normality after a surge of cases.
Experts and authorities before making their final decisions will be looking into the latest epidemiological data available on Friday.
Paphos has performed extremely well, according to scientists but Limassol still troubles epidemiologists although the ratio of cases per 100,000 inhabitants has dropped in the past 14 days, it is still high.
After peaking at 516.5 when the lockdown was decided on 11 November, it is under but still close to 500.
In the last 14 days, 44% of positive cases were reported from Limassol, that is four out of 10 people testing positive while in the last 7 days, the percentage of cases coming from Limassol is 41%.
Also, 50% of COVID-19 inpatients are from Limassol.
That is, 1 in 2 people being treated for COVID are from Limassol.
Some 74% of the deaths recorded in November were Limassol residents. That is, 3 out of 4 people who died from COVID-19 in November were from Limassol.
Reports say that the district is to remain under lockdown for another week, however, with some additional relaxations.
Epidemiologists are mulling allowing hairdressers and beauty salons, as well as shops and department stores to reopen under tight restrictions on the number of customers allowed.
Reportedly, the government will be looking into a proposal tabled by epidemiologists to close high schools across the nation from Tuesday, and have classes continue online, following a surge of cases amongst students.
No indication has been given to the media as to whether measures are to be tightened in other districts where cases have been increasing in recent days as coronavirus surges through care homes and homes for people with special needs.
An elderly man from a rural care home with a COVID-19 cluster died on Wednesday raising the death toll to 47, as Cyprus announced 254 new cases.
The Health Ministry said that the 82-year-old man, with underlying issues, had been admitted to Limassol General hospital, after being taken there from the Kyperounda community care home.
Wednesday’s new cases raised the national total for COVID-19 to 9,453.
