Coronavirus: Minister calls for patience till Thursday when measures may be relaxed

Health Minister Michalis Hadjipantelas on Sunday called on people to be patient until Thursday when announcements are expected to be made over the relaxation of coronavirus measures.

On Wednesday the minister will meet the advisory committee for Covid, where they are set to discuss abandoning the use of masks in outside spaces and a reduction in the number of tests carried out to bring Cyprus in line with other countries.

Hadjipantelas was speaking in Limassol after an event to raise funds and awareness of liver diseases.

Asked whether there will be relaxations to measures given that other European countries have dropped all of them, he said all developments will be monitored.

“I am glad to see many countries in Europe do not have measures,” the minister said “but we have to see that in China they have different measures, so these are some situations that we look at very carefully”.

He said the members of the advisory committee examine all measures very carefully. Any suggestions they make during the meeting on Wednesday will be conveyed to the council of ministers on Thursday, Hadjipantelas said.

When asked about masks in outdoor spaces and the number of tests carried out, he admitted “these are the two important issues that trouble us”.

But “the decisions we make as a country are taken on the basis of our own data and not on the basis of what other countries do. I want to remind you of the lockdowns that other countries had and we did not have them,” he added.

He also reminded that the picture changes frequently and that many times in the past decisions had been taken for relaxations only for the epidemiological picture to change.

“We must be patient until Thursday, but know that we will do what is right,” he added.