COVID19: Cases fall to double digits as Cyprus breaches 500,000 vaccinations

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Cyprus reported one death on Saturday, a drop in COVID-19 cases below 100 and hospitalisations to 115, while the vaccination rollout surpassed 500,000.

According to the Health Ministry, Saturday death – a 95-year-old woman – raised the month’s death toll to 41 and the total figure at 353, with May the third-worst month during the pandemic.

March had 25 deaths and 30 in February, but December and January were the worst months on record, with 76 deaths.

In its daily COVID report, the Health Ministry said the number of patients being cared for at six state hospitals continued to drop throughout the week, to 115 on Saturday, five less than the previous day, while critical cases were down from 48 to 44.

The 61,609 PCR and antigen rapid tests detected 91 cases less than Friday’s 135, taking total infections during the past 14 months to 71,836.

Based on the 91 new cases of SARS-CoV-2, the benchmark ‘test positivity rate’ remained at a low of 0.15%, far below the high-risk indicator of 1%.

Famagusta had the highest positivity rate (0.15%) and Paphos the lowest (0.5%).

The day’s new cases resulted from 18 infections identified through contact tracing; 12 were diagnosed from private labs and hospital tests, while three resulted from airport tests on arrivals.

There were also 58 cases detected from 55,320 government-conducted free rapid tests.

Of these, 14 cases were in Nicosia (test positivity rate of 0.07%), 12 in Limassol (0.09%), 9 in Larnaca (0.11%), 7 in Famagusta district (0.15%) and 3 in Paphos (0.05%).

Vaccination benchmark

A total of 504,008 COVID inoculations have been carried out in Cyprus, the Health Ministry said Saturday.

During the weekend, it is estimated that more than 18,500 vaccinations will take place across the island.

Up until 21 May, 504,008 inoculations took place, which translates to 57,3 doses per 100 residents.

From those, 356,376 people received the first jab (48.2%) and 147,632 (20%) completed their vaccination.

According to figures released by the ECDC, vaccinations in Cyprus are above the EU average of 39.6% of the population receiving one dose and 16.6% completing their vaccination.

Cyprus is ranked 4th among the EU member states.