COVID19: Cases dropping after week of highs

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The number of new daily coronavirus cases in Cyprus, as well as hospital admissions seems to be stabilising after a week of worrying increases, especially in Limassol and in schools.

The health ministry said in its daily bulletin that 364 new SARS-CoV-2 cases were recorded on Friday, down from 385 on Thursday and more than 400 previously.

At the same time, the number of patients already admitted in five state hospitals dropped to 204 from 212 the day before and 218 on Wednesday. Of these, 45 are critical, up from 43 on Thursday and 44 on Wednesday.

The State Hospital Services increased the nationwide bed capacity in Covid-wards to 400, with a special unit opening in Paphos on Saturday.

No deaths were attributed to COVID-19 for the third day in a row. The death toll since the pandemic started remains 241.

March has had a slower toll with an average of one death per day or less, better than February’s 30 and last December and January that were the worst months on record with 76 deaths each.

 

Record tests

A record 57,791 results for PCR and antigen rapid tests were announced on Friday, that diagnosed 364 new infections, allowing the test positivity rate to drop to 0.63% from the 0.99% earlier in the week.

This raised the total of all infections during the past 12 months to 41,475.

Of the positive test results, 93 were identified from contact tracing linked to earlier infections. One was a passenger among 542 samples from arrivals at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 59 were from private lab and hospital tests.

A further 211 were diagnosed from 618 private rapid tests and 54,171 results from the free national testing programme.

Of these 10,598 were from schools where 17 new cases were diagnosed, while from 5,992 tests at businesses and large organisations throughout the week, ten new COVID-19 cases were diagnosed.

Limassol continued to account for most of the positive results from rapid tests, with 98, followed by Nicosia (41), Larnaca (14), Paphos 12) and Famagusta district with 6.