COVID19: Cases see mild drop, hospitalisations up

Cyprus reported a mild drop in new daily coronavirus cases on Friday, down from record highs of 992 and 953 during the past two days to 882, but hospitalisations were up at 117.

The health ministry said in its Covid bulletin that no deaths were attributed to Covid-19 for the fourth consecutive day, with the death toll at two for July, and unchanged at 380 since the pandemic started.

Hospitalisations continued to rise attributed to the Delta strain, with 117 patients currently admitted in state hospitals, 10 more than the day before.

The number of critical cases rose by two from Thursday to 30.

In all, 62,161 PCR and antigen rapid tests were conducted on the day, far more than the 49,000 the previous day. Based on the 882 new cases, the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate dropped to 1.42% from 2.03% on Thursday, and considerably down from 2.16% on Wednesday.

The benchmark high-risk level is 1.00%.

Thursday’s new coronavirus cases pushed the total of all infections during the past 16 months to 82,463.

Of the new cases, five passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports were positive in PCR tests, and 183 cases were diagnosed from private lab and hospital tests, up from 142.

A further 694 new cases were diagnosed through the national free rapid testing programme, down from Thursday’s 773, of which 238 were in Limassol with the highest test positivity rate of 1.73%, followed by 187 in Nicosia (0.94%), 103 in Larnaca (1.14%), 76 in Paphos (1.28%) and 51 in Famagusta district (1.36%).

Of the 602 samples from staff and residents at retirement homes, six tested positive, two were diagnosed among 410 samples in industrial zones, as well as four soldiers among 634 tests in the National Guard.