COVID19: No deaths 4th day in a row, cases up

Cyprus reported no deaths attributed to the coronavirus for the fourth day in a row on Friday, as hospitalisations rose again to 45 and new daily infections increased from 65 to 76.

The health ministry said in its daily Covid bulletin that the death toll since the pandemic started remained unchanged at 374.

The last death was on Monday, when a 68 year old man was the 14th person to die of Covid-19 in June, according to Financial Mirror data.

The health ministry said that 45 patients are currently admitted in state hospitals for treatment, four more than Thursday, of whom 18 are critical, up by three from the day before.

Some 41,891 PCR and antigen rapid tests were conducted on the day which, based on the 76 new daily infections generated a test positivity rate of 0.18%, marginally down from 0.19% a day earlier, but far below the high-risk threshold of 1.00%.

The total number of infections during the past 15 months is now 73,520.

Of the new SARS-CoV-2 cases, 13 were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier infections, 12 passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports tested positive among 3,912 samples, and 10 were diagnosed from private lab and hospital tests.

A further 41 new cases were diagnosed through the national rapid testing programme.

Limassol accounted for most of the new infections, with 15 new cases and a test positivity rate of 0.17%, followed by a spike in Famagusta district with 12 ().53%), 8 in Nicosia (0.05%), 3 in Paphos (0.10%) and 2 in Larnaca (0.05%).

Of the 404 samples taken from staff and residents at retirement homes, as well as 282 from industrial zones, all tested negative.