COVID19: Daily cases climb to almost 600

Cyprus reported a two-month-high of 583 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, with hospital patients also rising but no more deaths.

The Health Ministry said in its daily Covid-report that a higher 48,358 PCR and rapid antigen tests were conducted, diagnosing an increase of 54 cases from Friday.

The new figure generated a benchmark test positivity rate of 1.21%, slightly up from 1.17% the previous day.

The Health Ministry said there were no deaths attributed to Covid-19, making it the eighteenth day in a row.

The death toll since the pandemic started remained unchanged at 378, with an average age of 77.

And the hospitalisation rate also rose again from 54 on Friday to 63 on Saturday, with the number of critical cases up by one to 21.

The total number of infections during the past 16 months is now at 77,445.

Of the new cases, eight passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports tested positive, 116 new cases were diagnosed from private labs and hospital tests, while 61 infections were discovered through contact tracing.

A further 398 new cases of SARS-CoV-2 were diagnosed through the free national rapid testing programme, up from 441 the day before.

Nicosia had the most cases with 134, and a test positivity rate of 0.84%, the two districts above the 1% high-risk benchmark was Limassol and Famagusta.

Limassol was second with 106 new cases and a test positivity rate of 1.07%.

However, the highest rate of 1.63% was once again recorded in Famagusta district with 79 cases, Larnaca had 50 (0.80%) and Paphos with 29 infections and the lowest rate of 0.64%.