Front Page Headlines
Compounding loan interest without gain for banks
Burden on borrowers from suspension of loan payments minimal. Mass applications for loan suspension and to join Ministry of Labour programmes. Access to new loans to businesses and citizens with simpler procedures and less bureaucracy.
- Reactions brought clarifications: Retreat with crisis of conscience
- Lakkotrypis: Asks for cheap fuel
Concerns for mortality rate
They will build and staff Intensive Care Units in 35 days and are prepared for the worst. Intensive Care Units and doctors will not be able to cover the needs.
- With participation of National Guard: Police block to apply decrees
- Migrants still come from occupied areas: Traffickers funnel them a few at a time to free areas – They appear at police stations and are led to Kokkinotrimithia
Profiteering while cases increase
They charge tests for 150 euros when they cost 30. Caesarean section to a mother found positive to COVID-19. Another dead and 32 more cases.
‘Compliance is not optional’
Anastasiades says rather be judged on new measures than see more victims.
- Deaths reach eight, 32 new cases
- Cyprus: Dogs can be taken for walk without SMS
We still have a long way to go…!
Until we start living like humans again. Restrictive measures not to be lifted quickly – We’ll get through April and Easter holidays closed in our homes and away from loved ones – What Petros Karagiannis and Leontios Kostrikkis say. Coronavirus patients will get medicine at home from volunteers.
- In the occupied areas: Movement at night prohibited – Number of confirmed cases reached 70.
Main News
Harsher coronavirus measures cause reactions and have to be adjusted
Alithia, Cyprus Mail, Haravgi, Oikonomiki Kathimerini, Phileleftheros, Politis
Internal Security, Human Rights, Migration & Citizenship, Regional/ International Relations
OVERVIEW
The dailies report on the implementation of the new harsher measures that were announced to limit the spread of the coronavirus, as well as the reactions which have led to clarifications by authorities.
Poilce chief Kypros Michaelides explained that the authorities will respect the privacy of peoples’ homes and will not force itself into a house. Michaelides added that the Police will intervene only when it receives information that there is a mass gathering at someone’s house, and that it will intervene by politely explaining the dangers of such behaviour.
Police will be patroling with the help of the National Guard and Civil Defence and will be setting roadblocks. The Police will also be using thermal cameras and drones for better monitoring of the situation.
Authorities announced that an 83-year-old man with a medical history died of the coronavirus on Tuesday and that 32 new cases were detected. Molecular Virology professor Leontios Kostrikkis told journalists that the new cases were detected as a result of 500 tests.
Out of these, 13 cases were detected through tracking the contacts of known cases, 4 were detected at the SBAs. The provenance of the 15 remaining cases is still being investigated.
The total of cases in Cyprus has risen to 332 according to a tally in Phileleftheros. 262 of these cases have been detected in the government controlled areas (including 9 at the SBAs) and 70 in the occupied areas, where there has been one death.
Out of the 262 cases detected in the south, 143 were a result of contacts in Cyprus. A total of 23 people in the south had been infected and are now clean of the virus.
The total number of deaths in the government controlled areas is eight. The average age of the seven men and one woman that passed away was 68, and six of them formerly had health problems.
Phileleftheros quotes Kostrikkis who has expressed concerns over the high mortality in Cyprus, which has reached 3% of the cases. The newspaper notes that Paphos is the most heavily hit district, since it accounts for 39.3% of all coronavirus cases in the government controlled areas.
The dailies also report that the first batch of masks and protective equipment arrived on Tuesday from China. The arrival of the supplies was announced on Twitter by the Chinese ambassador to Cyprus, Huang Xingyuan.
In another development, Phileleftheros reports that migrant arrivals to the government controlled areas have fallen to single digit numbers but haven’t dried up. Most come from African countries and not from countries that are at war, according to the report. Migrants cross through unmonitored areas of the buffer zone and ask for asylum at police stations before being led to the Kokkinotrimithia accomodation center, to a specialised isolated wing. The newspaper notes that the migrants are not tested for coronavirus, but that the police does check their temperature.
Measures in Turkey misguided as they focus only on business, analysts say
Oikonomiki Kathimerini, Politis
Economy, Regional/ International Relations
OVERVIEW
Politis reports that T/C “prime minister” Ersin Tatar will be announcing a package of one billion turkish lira to boost the T/C economy. According to media reports, about 70% to 80% of small and medium enterprises are expected to declare bankruptcy by the end of the crisis.
Kathimerini reports that the measures taken in Turkey and in the occupied areas are not seen as satisfying by the majority of the public. The report also notes that the Turkish economy had already been on the verge of a crisis, and that the looming economic crisis is also affecting the north of Cyprus.
According to the newspaper’s analysis, while other countries try to boost the economy through handing out money that citizens can spend, Turkey’s President Erdogan is instead chosing to support big companies that are allied with the government coalition. One example of this is the decision by the government to slash the taxes imposed on airline tickets.
Kathimerini points out that the current T/C “government” seems to be following blindly in Turkey’s footsteps, since the economic package announced by “prime minister” Ersin Tatar seems geared to support business owners in the casino and tourism sector. The package contains little support for the middle class and the most vulnerable groups in the T/C economy. The newspaper points out that at the same time T/C leader Mustafa Akinci has taken in upon himself to contact Turkey, Brussels, the EU and the World Bank requesting additional assistance.
Kathimerini cites statements by a Marxist and a liberal Turkish economic analyst that point out that measures taken in Turkey will not help in the long term. Both experts suggest that the state in Turkey should decisively intervene in the economy to help the social groups that are most hit by the crisis.