COVID19: Daily cases drop to 843, more beds in Limassol

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Cyprus saw a small drop in daily coronavirus cases on Wednesday to 843, from Tuesday’s record 941, but the number of hospitalisations increased to an all-time high of 291, nearing the health system’s critical 300-bed capacity.

The hospital’s authority said it might activate the next stage in its services to accommodate 400 patients.

The health ministry said that no new deaths were reported on Wednesday, maintaining the death toll for April at 39 and at 295 since the pandemic started.

With the number of patients admitted for treatment at state hospitals dropping to 277 on Tuesday from the record 284 on Monday, this number rose again to a new all-time high of 291, with the number of critical patients also increasing to 71 from 68 the day before.

The health ministry’s daily Covid bulletin said 53,024 PCR and rapid tests were conducted on Wednesday, which based on the 843 new cases of COVID-19 took the test positivity rate to 1.59%, slightly below Tuesday’s 1.66%, but still higher than the 1.38% on Monday and Sunday’s 1.44%.

To date, Cyprus has recorded 58,865 cases of SARS-CoV-2.

The day’s test results identified 103 new cases through contact tracing, five were passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports, 183 were diagnosed from private labs and hospital tests and 552 were positive from the national rapid testing programme.

Of these, 181 were in Nicosia (test positivity rate 1.35%), 109 were in Limassol (1.11%), 96 in Larnaca (1.63%), 46 in Paphos (1.29%) and 15 in Famagusta district (0.67%).

Only one person tested positive among 512 staff and residents at retirement homes, while schools remained the epicentre of infections and transmissions, with three new cases among teachers and pupils at elementary schools, and 42 in high schools.

 

More beds at Limassol hospital

The hospital’s administration authority, Okypy, said that in recent days there has been an increase in short-stay treatments at Limassol General hospital, where bed numbers were increased “and more doctors are expected over the next few days.”

The authority said that the next stage in the pandemic operational plan foresees an increase in the national bed capacity to 400 from the 300 at present, and the intensive care units to 65.

Okypy said that to date, some 3,000 patients have been treated for COVID-19 with 280 admitted at present, most of whom are being cared for in intensive care wards, while 700 more patients are being treated for other ailments.

It said that the average age of patients is 59.6 years and the median stay for treatment is 6 days.