NOT CATEGORY C - GREECE AND BRITAIN

 Filenews 22 September 2020 - by Chrysanthos Manolis

Questions and concerns of part of the Cypriot public about the preservation of Greece and the United Kingdom in category B, i.e. in the countries from which visitors are allowed to arrive without a self-restriction obligation if a negative certificate for the coronavirus has been secured, are not adopted by the assistant professor and member of the epidemiological team of the Ministry of Health George Nikolopoulos.

Seeking information from Mr Nikolopoulos on the criteria taken into account for keeping Greece and the United Kingdom in category B, despite the impression that the epidemiological situation in these countries is deteriorating, the Assistant Professor told 'F' that it should be understood that the degree of virus (R) transmission in the countries under assessment is only one of the indicators to be taken into account.

Before that, he explained, account was taken of cases of coronavirus detected in countries up to 14 days in advance, the country's population, the number of laboratory tests, the mortality rate per 100,000 inhabitants, hospital and intensive care admissions, etc.

It's not for C.

In particular, however, for Greece and the United Kingdom, Mr Nikolopoulos said that their categorization also takes into account the checks carried out at Cypriot airports on visitors from these countries, as well as on Cypriots returning from there. As far as arrivals from Greece are concerned, he said, 14 thousand checks have been carried out in the last two months, without identifying a problem, while for arrivals from the United Kingdom there have been 6 thousand checks and 10 thousand checks from Germany. These are elements that cannot be ignored and show, together with the other data, that both Greece and the United Kingdom should remain in category B. , Mr Nikolopoulos said that this would take too long and would probably be ineffective, as a visitor from an area considered problematic could conceal its origin when coming to the airport. We also asked whether the decisions on categorization also take into account the particular political, economic or other relations of the countries with Cyprus and the professor replied that the decisions of scientists are taken on the basis of actual epidemiological data, but did not rule out the possibility that governments might also consider other factors.

Yesterday's changes

In a decision announced yesterday, the Epidemiological Surveillance Unit downgraded six countries (five European and Canadian) and provided just one (Serbia). Specific:

Austria, Slovenia, Switzerland and Portugal move from Category B to Category C.

Norway from Category A moves to Category B

• Canada from Category A moves to Category B

• Serbia from Category C moves to Category B.

Following yesterday's changes (effective from 24 September) the categories are as follows:

Category A: Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Thailand

Category B: Belgium (precarious position due to deteriorating situation in the country), Denmark, Greece, Estonia, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Slovakia, United Kingdom, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Vatican City, San Marino, Uruguay, China, Japan, Georgia, Rwanda, Canada, Serbia.

Category C: Austria, Bulgaria, France, Croatia, Luxembourg, Romania, Spain, Malta, Netherlands, Hungary, Portugal, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Andorra, Monaco, Switzerland, Algeria, Morocco, Montenegro, Tunisia.