Our View: Incomplete data adds to divide over vaccination

On Monday and Tuesday Cyprus saw record numbers of daily Covid positives. The former reached almost 2,000, following a record number of tests, over 121,000. This was probably because people in various stages of vaccination, other than boosted, must now test once a week for work. Monday would obviously be the best day so that the test would cover the week. 

Given the general lack of clarity from the health ministry about the figures presented daily, the public remains in the dark and reduced to making guesses. Until the appearance of Omicron, the ministry refused – despite advice from the scientific team – to inform the double-jabbed that they would now have to test when it became all-too apparent they could transmit the virus, although probably to a lesser extent. 

People were initially offered the no-testing sweetener to encourage vaccination. The same tactic is being used now for the booster shot. In a real-life example, a double-jabbed member of a household has just tested positive. Another family member is boosted, yet there is no compulsion on them to be tested or to self-isolate. While they themselves are protected from serious illness and hospitalisation, there is still a possibility they could pass on the virus.  

The ministry never fails to provide a percentage of unvaccinated people in hospital but they do not do the same when it comes to the daily positives. This just leads people to make their own assumptions, which are probably wrong and just fuel the current societal divide. 

Both the hardcore pro-vax and anti-vax use the figures that suit them in their war of words as if it was clear-cut from the numbers presented daily as to how many of those testing positive are jabbed or not. But it isn’t clear. For instance, on Monday there were 12,917 PCR tests. When the figures from contact tracing, airport testing, tests on private initiative, sampling at hospital labs and GP referrals are added, they come to 12,917, producing 609 positives. There is no way to differentiate jabbed from unjabbed. 

Assumptions then move to tests done at private labs and pharmacies and the government’s free testing. On Monday there were 926 positives from 80,407 tests at the former, and 384 positives from 27,803 at the latter. In neither case can definitive conclusions be drawn. The latter includes not only people at various stages of vaccination, but also children who are for the most part unjabbed. It also includes vaccine exempt, though these are probably few. 

Similarly, to assume that everyone who tests at a lab or pharmacy is unvaccinated is also misleading as many vaccinated would rather pay a few euros for the convenience. All we are left with is the suspicion that if it suited the health ministry, it would announce the percentage of the unvaccinated who test positive, as they do for hospitalisations. Only the data that serves the government’s vaccination drive is released. While the government could argue its selectiveness was in the public interest, it cannot deny that this policy earns distrust.