COVID19: 1 death, cases rise again

Cyprus reported one coronavirus death and an increase in new infections to 80 on Monday, while hospitalisations remained stable.

The health ministry said in its daily Covid bulletin that a 70 year old man died of COVID-19, the fourth person in June with the death toll to date at 364.

The number of patients being treated for SARS-CoV-2 dropped marginally to 47 from 50 on Sunday, while the critical cases were up by one at 18, the same as on Saturday.

Since the pandemic started, Cyprus has recorded 72,859 cases.

A total of 46,611 PCR and antigen rapid tests were conducted on Monday which, based on the 80 new cases, generated a ‘test positivity’ rate of 0.17%, higher than throughout the past week, but significantly below the high-risk threshold of 1.00%.

Of the new cases, 11 were identified through contact tracing, five passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports tested positive among 4,000 samples, and 25 were diagnosed from private lab and hospital tests.

A further 39 new cases were diagnosed from the national rapid testing programme, of which 15 were in Nicosia with a test positivity rate of 0.12%, 10 in Limassol (0.12%), two in Larnaca (0.04%) and one in Famagusta district (0.04%).

No new cases were identified from the rapid tests in Paphos.

All 624 samples taken from staff and residents at retirement homes tested negative, as did 599 persons tested in industrial zones.

Only one person tested positive among 5,179 teacher and students, mainly in high schools, while two soldiers tested positive among 286 samples taken from the National Guard.