Restricted Christmas on the way, experts say

Coronavirus experts are mulling over plans for restrictions over Christmas, and stress that we shouldn’t expect carefree holidays.

At a news conference on Friday, members of the government’s health advisory committee said that with current measures set to expire at the end of the month, plans are currently being drawn up for what is to follow, with the new measures to take into account the upcoming Christmas holidays.

According to Dr Constantinos Tsioutis, “the goal is to achieve better conditions by Christmas, for obvious social and financial reasons,” but said this depends on the observance of measures in place.

“We shouldn’t expect that during Christmas we’ll be completely relaxed and without measures. There will definitely be restrictions. It will be a period of incredibly high risk of transmission at multiple social gatherings, with large numbers of contacts, and therefore measures will remain until then, especially as regards social gatherings, maximum numbers of people, and so on,” Tsioutis said.

He added that there are global fears that this period could set off a new wave of the pandemic.

Regarding Nicosia, which Friday’s new epidemiological report showed was experiencing an increased transmission of the virus, Tsioutis said that “as a committee we’re not ruling out suggesting measures.”