Cyprus Mail 1 November 2020 - by Cyprus News Agency
Authorities look set to announce new Covid measures in the coming week, according to a member of the scientific team.
The health minister will be meeting with the epidemiological team on Monday to assess the situation and final decisions are to be taken at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Constantinos Tsioutis, Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Infection Prevention and Control at the European University, a member of the advisory scientific team told the Cyprus News Agency on Sunday that in Limassol and Paphos districts, there is widespread community transmission in the community, which was significantly different from the previous surges that consisted mainly of outbreaks and clusters which were more easily controlled.
Tsioutis said that in order to control the current outbreak, it was essential to significantly limit contacts.
He said that until there was an improvement in situation, there would be an increase in hospital admissions because there was always a delay of several weeks between the detection of new cases and admissions.
The fact that Cyprus was seeing an increasing number of patients almost two weeks after the announcement of the last new measures, meant that the authorities needed to impose more severe measures, either at country level or where the problem is widely spread.
Tsioutis said the latest measures were not being sufficiently observed by the public.
As regards a general lockdown Tsioutis said this would be the option only in the case of uncontrolled spread with deteriorating health indicators, eg hospital admissions, ICU hospitalisations, deaths or increased transmission to vulnerable groups of people.
Tsioutis said that targeted measures were based on local epidemiological figures which allow the authorities to take measures with greater efficiency at the lowest possible cost.
Replying to a question about the rapid tests, he explained that these were rapid antigen tests, as opposed to rapid antibody tests, which are not considered appropriate means for controlling the pandemic.
He said the fast antigen tests have multiple advantages: they give results in 15-30 minutes, they are cheap, easy to use (although they are performed by a trained person on a special platform, they are not as specialised as the RT-PCR molecular test), and have a level of accuracy comparable to the molecular test, with a sensitivity> 94% (ie they identify the most positive) and specificity> 99.5% (ie the positive result means SARS-CoV-2 and not some other pathogen).
They detect specific virus proteins (antigens) that are found in a person`s respiratory system when that person has enough levels of the virus, which indicates the virus is reproducing and therefore the person is contagious.
He said that because of these characteristics, the tests would assist authorities to quickly locate the people who spread the virus and in a timely manner, and so would be useful for early detection of the virus in specific populations and under specific indications, such as those with symptoms, people who reside in areas with increased transmission and in people at high risk of exposure to the virus.
He stressed that the antigen test was not a substitute for molecular testing and therefore required careful planning in its application and use in specific groups. He added that some cases need to be confirmed by a PCR test.
To another question regarding the use of face masks indoors and outdoors, Tsioutis said that the literature so far indicates that the use of mask reduces the possibility of transmission from person to person, especially indoors and in crowded places, provided it was applied correctly by everyone.
He explained that trying to quantify its effectiveness as the only measure to control the recent outbreak was difficult as it has been imposed along with a set of other measures. He added that the effectiveness of the use of a mask varies depending on the space and the area.
Regarding the options of remote work for decongestion of work places, he recalled that in recent weeks measures were suggested to this end as there have been multiple cases of transmission in workplaces.
Tsioutis said that many of these cases would probably have been prevented, if such measures were in place.
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