Two weeks after bringing a second lockdown to slow a resurgence of COVID-19, Cyprus’ advisory committee is looking at pulling back on it, if the number of hospitalizations slows.
The head of the panel, Constantinos Tsioutis, told the Cyprus Mail it’s an iffy situation for now as health authorities are closely monitoring the numbers to see if stores can operate again conditionally to prop up a battered economy.
“The most decisive factor and the most decisive indicator for us to transition safely to relaxation is for the situation in the hospitals to improve. What led us to propose tougher measures was the pressure (on the health system) because of the large number of people who needed hospitalization. Therefore, this will be the precondition for relaxations,” he said.
Tsioutis said the lower number of cases of recent days was due to the tougher measures of December, and not the lockdown as it’s too early to tell the results of getting stricter.
“We are seeing a change that started around January 10- 11 because clearly, the December measures have started to bring results,” he said, adding the drop in cases was slow because community spread was very high while the impact on hospitalizations – for which there is a two to three-week time lag – will be seen later.
Because of the high number of cases of previous weeks, the number of patients in hospitals remains high, and Cyprus will continue to record deaths on a daily basis, he said, after holding down the pandemic relatively well earlier in 2020.
He said there is the worry that pulling back too fast and too much will see cases jump again as people come into contact again, and that health protocols to wear masks and stay safe social distances is essential.
The easing of the lockdown will therefore be careful and slow, particularly in the beginning, and very targeted. “This means that specific areas will start to open, depending on the danger and the risk of transmission”.
“We will not open the riskiest places. Nor should we expect that the highest number of permitted people will suddenly increase dramatically in the first weeks of February, nor that a lot of places will open at the same time, increasing the risk.”
Like other countries, Cyprus is counting on vaccinations to play a key role in bringing the pandemic under control but he said it won’t be fully contained even through the end of 2021 and likely will exist in a milder form in 2022.
Read the full at thenationalherald.com
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