The health ministry on Friday announced 15 new cases of coronavirus bringing the total to 750 as authorities prepared to ramp up security measures over the Easter weekend.
Virologist Leontios Kostrikis said the picture that was emerging was satisfactory and that things were heading in the right direction.
He added the 15 new cases came from a total of 3,241 tests.
Four cases were found among the 20,000 tests conducted on workers in the public and private sector, of which a total of 1,723 were processed on Friday. Another three were found among contacts of other previously confirmed cases, two were found from a total of 162 tests conducted at the state hospitals, and the remaining six were from state health organisation, Okypy, staff.
He added of the 20,000 tests conducted on workers in the public and private sectors, as of Friday a total of 6,499 were processed.
“The data over the last few days paint a picture that is satisfactory to us. It is a reward for all your sacrifices and the collective effort,” he said.
Commenting on the status at the hospitals, clinical director of Okypy, Dr Marios Loizou said there were a total of nine patients intubated, three at Limassol General’s intensive care, and six at Nicosia General’s intensive care. He added there were another four in intensive care at the Nicosia hospital, but they were not on ventilators.
Nineteen people are being treated at Famagusta General, three of whom are in intensive care, he added.
He said another eight were in other hospitals.
According to Loizou, humanity was unprepared to deal with the pandemic.
“Despite all this, as Cyprus we did well. We can consider ourselves lucky, that the government, under the guidance of scientific teams, took the tough decisions on time,” he said.
He added life will return to normal slowly, and to succeed in beating the disease the efforts of the public need to continue.
Meanwhile in the north, the ‘health ministry’ announced three new cases on Friday, out of a total of 459 tests. One was a nurse, one was a teacher at technical school, and was a mechanic from Turkey.
The ‘cabinet’ also decided to extend the lockdown and curfew in place until the end of the month.
Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci said they needed to be optimistic about overcoming the virus, but that enough testing was not being done.
