COVID19: One death, fewer patients in Cyprus

Cyprus reported its first coronavirus death after a four day lull, with the number of patients dropping further to 57 and the daily infection rate unchanged from the day before at 58.

The health ministry said that a 64 year old woman died on Wednesday, the first in June, with the death toll since the pandemic started 15 months ago at 361.

On the other hand the rate of hospitalisations continued to drop to 57, from 66 on Tuesday and 70 on Monday, with the critical cases also reduced to 22, from 27 and 31 the previous two days.

Some 39,568 PCR and antigen rapid tests were conducted on the day, significantly less than the 43,000 on Tuesday, with the total number of infections in Cyprus now at 72,573.

Based on the 58 new infections and the fewer tests, the benchmark test positivity rate was slightly increased at 0.15%, but far from the risk factor of 1.00%.

Of the new cases of SARS-CoV-2, 17 were discovered through contact tracing linked to earlier infections, 3 passengers among 2,388 samples at Larnaca and Paphos airports tested positive, and 16 cases were diagnosed from private lab and hospital tests.

A further 22 new cases were diagnosed from the national rapid testing programme of which 8 were in Limassol (test positivity rate of 0.11%), 8 were in Nicosia (0.08%), one in Larnaca (0.02%0, one in Paphos (0.03%) and one in Famagusta district 0.04%).

All 816 samples taken from staff and residents at retirement homes tested negative, as did 561 samples from workers in two industrial zones.

One positive case was reported among 4,963 tests of teachers and students in high schools.