Daily Covid 19 cases increasing in Cyprus.

406 cases yesterday, one death (328 to date), hospitalizations continue to decrease at 247....

Lets hope this trend continues,, however it must be noted that we are still to see if there are any impacts of the easter relaxations....

324 cases today 4 deaths 237 hospitalization so looking better for now let's hope it continues

397 cases and 2 deaths today and 233 hospitalizations

LATEST

The ‘safe pass' -the colloquial term for documentation allowing people unfettered access to any venue – will be used “long term” and can be displayed in either electronic or print form, a government minister told the Sunday Mail – as lawyers continued hammering the draconian nature of the measure.

The definition of ‘long-term' is a year or more. But the issue goes beyond whether the pass is temporary, long-term, or ‘long-term but temporary' as in ‘not permanent', which remains to be seen.

News of the ‘safe pass' – previously ‘coronapass' – has also raised concerns in the legal profession over a further stripping away of liberties in having to possess proof of non-infection with a disease to go about much of their daily life for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people, and those who have recovered.

Effectively replacing the SMS permission system in place so far, the pass will be in effect from tomorrow with the lifting of the two-week lockdown imposed before Easter. It will be enforced by police.

The pass be required for people to visit cafes, restaurants, shopping malls, gyms, theatres and places of worship. The only retail areas where evidence of health status will not be required will be those involving food purchases, also hairdressers, beauty salons, banks, public sector offices, betting shops, beaches and other parts of nature.

The pass entails either having a negative Covid test carried out within the last 72 hours, or having received at least one dose of a vaccine three weeks prior, or having contracted the virus in the past six months.

Deputy Minister for Research, Innovation and Digital Policy Kyriakos Kokkinos told the Sunday Mail they were working on the digital form and will have a stop-gap measure in place until then.

For Covid tests, a person can simply display the normal SMS they receive after undergoing a rapid test. For the other two cases – vaccination or having contracted the virus – the ministry of research was gathering information from databases.

kokkinos 960x639Deputy Minister for Research, Innovation and Digital Policy Kyriakos Kokkinos
“We're going to be working throughout the weekend so that by Monday [May 10] we'll have identified all these people., to whom we'll send out an SMS to their phones, which they can then display as and when requested,” he said.

This, he added, will be a ‘crude', interim arrangement until the government rolls out an actual app expected in early July. The ‘safe pass' for domestic use will be modelled on the EU's Digital Green Pass, which is often referred to as a ‘Covid passport' and is being designed for international travel.

The EU pass, decided after a European Parliament vote on March 25, will include a QR code to secure citizens' data. Likewise, it's expected to be operational by the end of June.

Also known as the Digital Green Certificate, this travel document will allow EU citizens to move within the European Union.

Coming back to the domestic ‘safe pass', Kokkinos said it will be used “long term.” He did not elaborate on whether he foresaw it being in place for weeks, months or years.

Last Thursday, Health Minister Constantinos Ioannou said the Covid certificate or pass system would be a “temporary” fixture, which generally implies weeks or even months.

He told a news conference: “This measure is temporary and will be applied for a transitional period in order to ensure that our travels and social contacts are made as safe as possible for our health and for public health.”

The goal, he added, was to achieve the desired immunity through vaccinations.

This ‘temporary' tag was also used by deputy government spokesman Panayiotis Sentonas on Friday when he said the safe pass measure would be “temporarily implemented and constantly under evaluation”. “Our goal is to remove the safe pass as soon as possible,” he said, describing a measure whereby the public must prove they are not infected as the “road to freedom”.

With 65 per cent of the population still unvaccinated, many through no fault of their own, pressure will now increase on testing centres as people scramble to get tested more often in order to go be able to eat out or go to the gym over the next couple of months at least until the vaccination programme is further along and testing is reduced.

Ioannou also stated that the responsibility for checking possession of proof will lie not with businesses, but with the police and officials of competent ministries and departments depending on their areas of responsibility.

At the time of writing, the ministerial decree on the new set of measures – including the ‘safe pass' – had not yet been published in the government gazette – a prerequisite for it to have effect.

Speaking to the Sunday Mail on Friday [May 7] afternoon, cabinet secretary Theodosis Tsiolas said the text of the decree was expected to be finalised by that evening and then published in the gazette.

The new decree has an expiry date of May 31. But, as Tsiolas noted, it could be extended/renewed at any time.

An overnight curfew, between 11pm and 5am, will remain in place.

On the Covid pass itself, Tsiolas said the ministry of research and innovation had been working on it over the past two weeks – coinciding with the timeframe when the health minister first floated the concept.

In the decree's text, the ‘safe pass' is referred to as “electronic or printed usage of proof.”

Without being prodded, Tsiolas then offered: “So I don't understand what all the fuss is about…it was announced about two weeks ago.”

On social media, the commentary over the measure has been split, some welcoming it, others alarmed at its controlling implications. The minister's assurances it would be “temporary” were met with skepticism and sarcasm. Many believe the measure will become permanent once it's rolled out digitally.

Christos Clerides, chairman of the bar association, quickly blasted the measure as unlawful and excessive.

In a written comment piece circulated to media, he laid out the flaws in the new system.

“In my view, both the rapid test and the PCR test, which entail intervening in the bodily integrity due to the means with which they are performed, are also quite likely a violation of corporeal integrity It is also my position that the indirect way in which either vaccination, or rapid or PCR tests, are being imposed, is not permissible.

“The precondition for e.g. securing the coronapass, indirectly leads to breaching Article 7 of the constitution regarding the protection of a person's bodily integrity.”

Such a pass, he went on, will also create a two-tier system: those bearing the pass, and those “who for their own reasons do not wish to be vaccinated or to being submitted to the tests in question as a condition for exercising their constitutional rights.”

Meantime a Nicosia-based law firm is prepping to file a lawsuit this coming week challenging the new measures applying as of May 10 – including the safe pass, the curfew and the mandatory rapid tests.

Yiannos Georgiades, of Y. Georgiades & Associates LLC, told the Sunday Mail the lawsuit incorporates some 60 to 70 plaintiffs – with more possibly added on later.

The defendants named will be: the state, the minister of health, and the entire advisory team on covid.

Broadly, the defendants will be sued for violating fundamental human rights, as well as for negligence – in the sense that the response to the coronavirus has been unwarranted, excessive, and executed without first having conducted a cost-benefit analysis assessing the measures' impact on society, on many levels – financial and otherwise.

Beyond the lawsuit, the lawyers will petition the court to issue an injunction staying the ministerial decrees until such time as the court delivers a final judgment on the case proper itself.

Georgiades said that once the hearings begin, they will bring expert witnesses from Cyprus and overseas to testify on matters like the low risk posed by covid on a population level.

Regarding the enforcement of the covid pass in the meantime, the attorney opined it might fizzle out in practice.

“I think it's going to very impractical and difficult to enforce it. What? Will police officers walk into a restaurant, come over to your table and ask you to produce papers, so to speak? And how many people will go along with this?

“At any rate, these are extremely reactionary measures, and they violate every human right imaginable.”

At the start of the year, the UK floated the idea of a ‘freedom pass' along the same lines, where people would need it to access venues and entertainment and even pubs. Prime Minister Boris Johnson flip-flopped over the issue on several occasions until one government minster said in March there were no “immediate plans” to do so. So far it has not been introduced. Denmark rolled out a ‘Covid passport' this year and Estonia last month. Israel also rolled out a similar mechanism earlier in the year.

SOURCE vhttps://cyprus-mail.com/2021/05/09/coronavirus-safe-pass-will-be-long-term-minister-says/

Yesterday 269 cases 2deaths 226 in hospital and a record almost 110k tests

Today 276 cases one death and 207 hospitalizations

390 cases 2 deaths and 189 hospitalizations today

yesterday 260 cases 2 deaths and 173 in hospital......

interesting that since the rapid test required from monday 10th to go to venues (tavernas cafes bars restaurants etc) , places where people gather, seemed to increase testing from approx 55k to over 109k but has now dropped back to that normal level .....

Yesterday 213 cases,one death and 157 in hospital.... and almost 75k tests...... am really not convinced of these numbers..... its almost as if the Easter gatherings never happened and there were no impacts. So I am thinking the Gov either lied before (to control us)  or are lying now (to save the tourism based economy)  but either way they seem seem to have lied to everyone

I do hope the figures arent being skewed and we dont get a further wave

Today 171 cases 4 deaths and 155 in hospital

Curfew reduced to midnight to 5am

And no Covid pass for outdoor venues

Today 157 cases no deaths and 156 in hospital.... almost 84k tested

Looking to have stabilised which is promising

Jim

keeping my fingers crossed....

what is worrying is the outbreaks of the Indian Variant - I dont think it is here..... yet.. so lets hope it doesnt surface.......

Yes it's causing problems here and I don't understand why India wasn't on the red list months ago

Jim

Almost 64000 tested and 165  cases no deaths and 157 in hospital

Today 167 cases one death and 150 in hospital

Today 167 cases one death and 148 in hospital... about 46k tested

Today 135 cases no deaths and 148 in hospital... over 44k tested

Holding steady..... 👌

Lets hope it continues  - albeit  its a confused situation for tourism as UK still saying dont fly to amber category countries for holiday......

Yes travel advice is still pretty confusing

Jim

Today 77 cases two deaths  and approx 44500 tests hospital cases reducing too

yesterday 135 cases two deaths 120 in hospital  and nearly 80k tested..


Cyprus' improved epidemiological picture might help put the country on Britain's green list within one or two weeks, a tourist industry professional said on Friday.

The significant drop in the island's 14-day cumulative diagnosis rate to 431.6 from 689.3 per 100,000 residents moved Cyprus from the dark red to the red category based on the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). The improvement is expected to translate into placement on the UK's travel lists. It was previously estimated that the country would be upgraded in up to six weeks.

Cyprus is currently on the ‘amber' category, which sees travellers incur a ten-day self-isolation upon return to Britain and undergoing two PCR tests.

“After a year and a half [since] the pandemic, the first signs of optimism began to appear,” said the head of the Cyprus Hotel Association (Pasyxe), Haris Loizides said after a meeting with the Leader of the ruling party Disy Averof Neophytou on Friday.

The good epidemiological picture shows that it is “very, very likely that Cyprus will soon be included in the green category and when I say soon, I mean the next one to two weeks,” he said.

Britain, one of the main tourist markets for the island, is expected to review the green, amber and red lists in early June, although the UK government has not yet confirmed an official date.

Neophytou called on the public to be extremely careful since “as the number of cases decreases, we are heading to the green category” which would help boost tourism and in turn contribute to the national economy.

He said hotels were one of the main sectors affected by the pandemic, but hoteliers started seeing an increase in their bookings after the recent relaxation.

“We have won the battle of the pandemic. We roll up our sleeves and we will win the battle of the economy,” Neophytou said.

To ensure the country's upgrade when Britain next reviews its traffic light list, Transport Minister Yiannis Karousos called on everyone working in the tourist industry to get vaccinated.

“The United Kingdom, [gives] great importance in the percentage of vaccinated population in the assessment of countries,” Karousos said.

Cyprus allows vaccinated tourists from Britain and other countries to visit the island without a negative coronavirus test since May 1.

The airports in Larnaca and Paphos provide flights to 115 destinations from 50 companies in 35 countries, Karousos said. The number of countries is similar to 2019, when destinations included 40 countries, “which was the best tourist season we have ever had,” he added.

SOURCE -  https://cyprus-mail.com/2021/05/21/coro … on-friday/
SOURCE
https://cyprus-mail.com/2021/05/22/coro … two-weeks/

Today 91 cases one death and 115 in hospital

Today 75 cases one death. 115 in hospital and over 60k tested

Today 100 cases two deaths and 106 in hospital .... almost 55k tested

Any updates Toon?

Jim

all in the new thread Jim