COVID19: One death, fewer patients, new cases up

Cyprus reported one coronavirus death on Wednesday, a significant drop in admitted patients to 246 and a slight increase in new cases to 562, as the country nears the end of the two-week lockdown, with the government pondering if it will keep measures in place.

The national testing programme is expected to increase from Monday when schools reopen and students, as well as teachers and staff, need to secure a negative result before being allowed back in class.

The health ministry said that a 92 year old man, who had not been vaccinated, died at Limassol General hospital, raising the death toll for May to 15 and the to date figure to 327.

The daily Covid bulletin said that 246 patients are being treated for SARS-CoV-2, down from 263 on Tuesday and 276 the day before, while the 67 critical cases were two more than Tuesday. The average age of all patients remains unchanged at 58.6 years.

A total 57,314 PCR and antigen rapid tests were conducted on Wednesday, which, based on the 562 new COVID-19 cases, generated a test positivity rate of 0.98%, above Tuesday’s 0.81% and marginally below the benchmark 1.00% risk factor.

Cyprus has had 67,982 coronavirus cases since the pandemic started 14 months ago.

The new cases included 84 diagnosed from contact tracing, four tested positive among 1,874 passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 106 were identified from private lab and hospital tests.

A further 368 were new coronavirus cases were diagnosed through the national rapid testing programme, of which 116 were in Nicosia (test positivity rate 0.64%), 116 in Limassol (0.86%), 62 in Larnaca (0.85%), 23 in Famagusta district (0.66%) and 16 in Paphos (0.37%).

Of the 1,033 staff and residents tested at retirement homes, only three tested positive for COVID-19, as well as four among 1,770 tests at industrial zones.