Cyprus saw a small drop in new coronavirus cases to 677 on Friday and one death attributed to COVID-19, while hospitalisations continued to rise, as the national testing programme broke a new record of 69,000 tests.
The health ministry said that an 87 year old man died, raising the death toll for April to 28, nearing the March figure of 30 deaths, and the to-date figure since the pandemic started at 284.
He had underlying health issues, but had received the first dose of the vaccine.
However, the number of patients admitted in state hospitals continued to rise, topping 270 compared to 251 the day before, of whom 63 are critical, one less than Thursday.
Health officials have warned that the hospitals are under great pressure and the 300-capacity level may be breached soon, if public health protocols are not kept and the vaccination programme is not speeded up.
The health ministry said that a record 69,068 PCR and antigen rapid tests were conducted on Friday, which based on the 677 new cases of SARS-CoV-2, generated a test positivity rate of 0.98%, barely below the ‘low risk’ benchmark 1.00%.
This was significantly lower than Thursday’s 690 cases and test positivity rate of 1.36%, the highest in recent weeks. A total of 54,621 cases of SARS-CoV-2 have been recorded during the past 13 months.
The national testing data included the weekly accumulated results of 9,063 tests at businesses and large organisations, of which 17 were positive for COVID-19.
Friday’s new cases comprised of 120 identified through contact tracing inked to earlier infections, two tested positive among 1,143 samples from passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 147 were diagnosed from private lab and hospital tests.
A further 408 were diagnosed from rapid tests, 138 of which were in Nicosia (0.80% positivity rate), 101 in Limassol (0.90%), 59 in Larnaca (0.98%), 20 in Paphos (0.62%) and 18 in Famagusta district (0.74%).
Four tested positive from 586 samples taken from residents and workers at retirement homes, while 18 high school students and one elementary pupil tested positive from 11,781 samples, while 11 soldiers tested positive among 1,095 samples from the National Guard.
