Cyprus reported one death attributed to COVID-19 on Friday, with hospitalisations in decline, and a marginal increase in new daily cases to 60.
The health ministry said that a 30 year old man died at Nicosia General hospital, raising the death toll for June to 12 and the to-date figure to 372.
Nine of the deaths were recorded this week with one each on Monday and Tuesday, two on Wednesday and four on Thursday.
The average age of all deaths dropped further to 77 years, with men accounting for 249 of cases (67) and 123 women.
The ministry said in its daily Covid-report that the number of patients presently admitted in state hospitals for treatment dropped to 38, from 47 the day before, while the critical cases were fewer by two at 15.
With the weekend approaching and many seeking a visit to the occupied north that requires 72 hour test results, the number of PCR and antigen rapid tests increased by about 15,000 to 53,864.
Testing benchmark drops to 0.11%
Based on the 60 new cases diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2, up from 59 the previous day, the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate dropped significantly to 0.11%, declining from 0.16% on Thursday which was below Wednesday’s 0.20% and far from the high-risk threshold of 1.00%.
Since the pandemic started 15 months ago, Cyprus has recorded 73,115 coronavirus infections.
Of the new cases, 14 were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier known infections, four passengers among 3,271 samples taken at Larnaca and Paphos airports tested positive, and 16 were diagnosed from private lab and hospital tests.
A further 26 new cases were identified through the national rapid testing programme, of which 11 were in Limassol with a test positivity rate of 0.11%, 9 in Nicosia (0.06%) and 2 in Paphos (0.06%). No new cases were diagnosed in Larnaca and Famagusta district.
Continuing the trend throughout the week, all 484 samples taken from staff and residents at retirement homes tested negative, as did 414 tests in industrial zones.
Four persons tested positive among 9,124 targeted sampling all week at large organisations and businesses.
