We will continue to take measures until the vaccine. The mask will accompany us until then, this is my personal assessment, said the Minister of Health as a guest on RIK and on the show Challenges on the night of Thursday, November 12th.
Mr. Ioannou expressed great concern about the holiday season. If we have very good results by the end of November then there will be relaxation he explained. "Unfortunately, this Christmas will not be the same. It will be with measures with restrictions. "My personal view is that we have to take strict measures for that period," he said.
Mr. Ioannou was asked about the measures taken in Limassol and Paphos and explained, among other things, why no decision was made for a total Lockdown for a few days.
"The opinion of the scientists was that at this stage it was better to go with local measures. These are the guidelines of the ECDC. That is, to avoid the general lockdown ", he explained.
"We are going to escalate the measures in order to be able to coexist with the virus. The easiest decision was the total lockdown. This should be the last measure, however, there are psychological, social and economic consequences ", said the Minister.
"We have to have measures in our quiver. "If we went to a total lockdown, its duration would be unknown according to experts." He said that in his thoughts was a "shock lockdown" for 14 days in the British model. "But the vast majority of experts were against," he continued.
Coronavirus consciousness
"If we do not acquire individual and collective responsibility then we will not have the desired results. If, for example, we went to a lockdown for 2 weeks and came back as we were before then we would reach the same. We must discipline the measures, there is fatigue, I understand that ", said Mr. Ioannou.
Among other things, he described the situation that arose in the slaughterhouse as tragic. "Obviously something went wrong and the government services may also have responsibilities. Checks were made. However the control is done at the given moment, the other hours is the responsibility of the employer.
Since August, we have taken measures to limit gatherings. It was not more or less expected that we would have cases in the Autumn ".
The Minister also referred to the mass tests that will be carried out in the two overburdened Provinces.
"We are asking for urgent offers for mobile units. There will be 10 mobile units aiming to do each up to 500 tests per day. A total of about 3 to 5 thousand tests will be performed per day. This is an antigen test not pcr (molecular). Antigen tests do not have the same sensitivity. "Every positive antigen test will be confirmed with a pcr test," he said. He even added that he instructed that antigen tests be performed every two weeks in closed structures, in prisons as well as in hospitals.
