COVID19: Cyprus applauded for fight against pandemic

Cyprus’ epidemiological picture and vaccination rate is among the best in Europe deserving to be congratulated, said Agoritsa Baka, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) senior expert.

She told an online conference on public health that Cyprus had some of the best COVID metrics in the EU.

In her speech, Dr Baka referred to the epidemiological picture of Europe, based on the latest risk assessment, which ranks Cyprus, along with France, in fourth out of 30 European countries with a 3.2 index (level of concern), while in the first place, with the lowest index, is Malta (2.3), followed by Italy (2.5) and Spain (2.7).

Romania has one of the lowest vaccination coverages. It is going through the worst season with a high index of 10, followed by other east European countries such as Latvia with 9.0, Estonia and Lithuania with 8.7 and Bulgaria with 8.0.

The indicator gathers the incidence, positivity, cases in the elderly, hospitalisations and deaths,

Europe’s overall picture concerning new COVID-19 cases remains high but stable, Dr Baka said, with deaths remaining at low levels.

Still, we see older age groups go up in terms of incidence.

She said Cyprus is on a very good course and commended the government for the “very good vaccination coverage”.

According to the data, 74.4% of Europe’s adult population has been vaccinated, but there is a large variation between countries since in some, the vaccination coverage is close to 24% and in others nearer 90%.

The ECDC team, in the latest risk assessment, reports that those countries which have a below-average vaccination coverage have a very high risk of putting pressure on their health systems.

“Non-pharmaceutical measures should continue to be used by public health authorities, depending on the epidemiological picture of each country.”

Cyprus was recently promoted from the high-risk red zone to orange by the ECDC, while 81.4% of the population has received a jab.