COVID19: 1 death, patients drop below 100 for first time

Cyprus reported one coronavirus death on Tuesday, a drop in new daily infections from 100 the day before to 79 and the number of hospitalisations at 97, dropping below the marker 100 level for the first time in months.

A 77 year old man succumbed to COVID-19, raising the death toll for May to 45 and to 357 since the pandemic started.

The health ministry said in its daily Covid report that 97 patients are being treated in five state hospitals, down from 106 on Monday, when Paphos General shut down its Covid ward after releasing the last patient who had recovered.

The number of critical cases also dropped to 37 from 43 the day before.

Some 43,347 PCR and antigen rapid tests were conducted on Tuesday which, based on the 79 positive cases of SARS-CoV-2 generated a test positivity rate of 0.18%, slightly below the 0.19% the previous day and far lower than the risk level of 1.00%.

In all, Cyprus has had 72,090 coronavirus infections since the pandemic started 14 months ago.

Of the new cases, 12 were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier infections, one passenger tested positive among 2,492 passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports, 21 were diagnosed from private lab and hospital tests, while 45 new cases were discovered through the national rapid test programme.

Of these, 20 were in Limassol (test positivity rate 0.26%), 8 in Nicosia (0.07%), 5 in Famagusta district (0.23%), 4 in Larnaca (0.11%) and 4 in Paphos (0.11%).

Of 6,872 tests in high schools, only one sample was positive for COVID-19.