COVID19: One in 10 patients died in January

One in 10 patients who contracted COVID-19 died in the second week of January with the month looking as grim as December which was the deadliest month on record since the coronavirus outbreak.

According to a Health Ministry report released on Friday, 24 people, or 11% of 214 patient deaths with COVID-19 since the pandemic in March, died in the second week of January.

In total, 61 deaths of patients with COVID-19 have been recorded in January, closing in on December’s grim record of 85 or 40% of total deaths.

The figures published on Friday cover the period of March 2020 to January 20, 2021.

Indicative of the worsening situation in January, is further highlighted when compared with November’s 35 deaths and the 33 deaths spread across seven months (March – October).

The Ministry’s latest statistics also show that 53 people, about a quarter of total COVID-19 deaths, were permanent residents of nursing homes.

Some 26 were residents at Nicosia care homes, 22 were residents of Limassol care homes, while four were from Larnaca and one in Famagusta.

From a total of 214 people who died after contracting COVID-19, 67% (143) were men and 33% (71) women.

Of the 214 deaths recorded up to Wednesday, 178 or 83% were directly caused by COVID-19.

And for January, 53 out of the 61 deaths were caused by the virus, rather than dying with COVID-19.

The biggest frequency of deaths occurred in the age group of 80 to 84, which accounted for 55 deaths or 26% of the total.

The Health Ministry said the report was compiled according to EuroMOMO (European Mortality Monitoring).

EuroMOMO (European Surveillance of Excess Mortality) network aims to provide coordinated early mortality monitoring and analysis in as many European countries as possible, using a standardized approach to ensure that data are comparable.