COVID19: Mild improvement with fewer cases, patients

Cyprus saw a mild improvement in the general health situation with fewer new coronavirus cases and patient admissions on Wednesday, despite two people dying of COVID-19 without underlying issues.

The health ministry said in its daily bulletin that a 70 year old man and a 75 year old died, raising the death toll since the pandemic started to 248. To date, 165 (67%) of the deaths were men and 83 women, with an average age of 79 years.

The health ministry added that 211 patients are currently admitted in six state hospitals, less than the 222 on Tuesday, and 47 are critical, down from 50 the day before.

Some 37,486 PCR and antigen rapid tests were conducted on Wednesday with 293 new cases of SARS-CoV-2 diagnosed, significantly less than the 365 on Tuesday and 410 on Monday. The ratio of new infections to test numbers generated a positive test rate of 0.78%, less than the 0.99% recorded on Tuesday and 0.95 on Monday.

The total of all infections during the past twelve months increased to 43,286.

The tests identified 96 new cases of COVID-19 through contact tracing linked to earlier infections, while 50 were diagnosed from private and hospital lab tests.

A further 147 had positive results from rapid tests, of which 58 were in Limassol, 31 in Nicosia, 13 in Larnaca, 9 in Paphos and 7 in Famagusta district, while 9,584 tests at mobile units visiting public schools diagnosed 12 new cases.

The health ministry added that 888 tests of staff and residents at retirement homes were all negative, as were 292 samples from passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports.

Also, 74 passengers from the U.K. who completed their seventh day in quarantine in local hotels all were negative for coronavirus.