In a strange turn of events, virologist Leontios Kostrikis, a member of the health ministry’s epidemiological team, was absent from the health ministry daily briefing.

“Professor Kostrikis is not here with us today because he is at the police station to report on some intimidating phone calls which he received in recent days,” health ministry spokesperson Margarita Kyriacou said.

Today’s cases were announced by the scientific director of state health services (Okypy) Dr Marios Loizou.

“The last thing we need right now in our country in this stage of the pandemic are these types of actions,” Loizou said.

As for the cases, five of the infections were identified via 315 tests carried out during contact tracing.

The other case was found after 232 tests were done by the microbiological labs of the general hospitals.

On Tuesday, the programme of 800 randomised tests throughout the population concluded – with only one person testing positive.

The initiative was carried out by the health ministry in order to gain a better idea of the spread of the disease within the general population.

As part of the random sampling, 1054 people were invited to participate with 773 accepting the offer. People were chosen according to their age and region of residence.

A more detailed analysis on the results will be given by professor George Nikolopoulos on Thursday.

Despite a steady downward trend of infections, there was a spike on April 28 as 15 new cases were recorded.

On April 27, five new cases and one death were announced.

The highest number of cases recorded so far in the Republic was on April 1 when 58 Covid-19 infections were confirmed. Since then, there have been fewer reported cases each day but with some notable fluctuations.

Source: Cyprus Mail