COVID19: One death, cases continue to drop

Cyprus reported one death attributed to COVID-19 on Thursday, with an increase in hospitalisations to 58 and a drop in new daily infections to 53.

The health ministry said that a 73 year old woman died, the second in June, raising the death toll since the pandemic started to 362.

The number of patients treatment for the coronavirus increased by one from the previous day to 58, while the critical cases dropped by one to 21.

Some 43,163 PCR and antigen rapid tests were conducted on the day, more than Wednesday’s 39,600, which, based on the 53 new cases generated a lower test positivity rate of 0.12%, considerably far from the high-risk benchmark of 1.00%.

The total number of all infections during the past 15 months is now 72,626.

Of the new cases, 8 were identified through contact tracing, linked to earlier infections, three passengers among 3,300 samples taken from arrivals at Larnaca and Paphos airports tested positive, while 14 were diagnosed from private lab and hospital tests.

A further 28 new cases of COVID-19 were identified from the national rapid testing programme, of which 15 were in Limassol (test positivity rate of 0.19%), 8 were in Nicosia (0.07%), one was in Famagusta district (0.05%) and no new cases were recorded in Paphos and Larnaca.

Of the 924 tests in two industrial zones, only one tested positive, none of the 482 samples from staff and residents at retirement homes were infected with the coronavirus, and only one sample from 7,454 teachers and students in high schools tested positive.