Coronavirus hospitalisations in Cyprus continued to rise to 153 on Monday, despite a mild drop in new infections to 832 and efforts by state officials to encourage younger people to vaccinate.
The government has engaged in a dialogue with stakeholders to introduce an incentive package, including gift vouchers for holidays and tech gadgets.
Authorities are contemplating financial incentives similar to those introduced in Greece, where young people under 26 are encouraged to get a jab in exchange for a €150 voucher.
Vouchers given to Greek youngsters are redeemable in the tourism industry, such as buying air, ferry tickets and paying for hotel accommodation.
The Health Ministry said in its Covid bulletin that no deaths were attributed to Covid-19 for the seventh consecutive day, with the death toll remaining at two for July and unchanged at 380 since the pandemic started.
Hospitalisations continued to rise to 153 patients admitted for treatment, up from 139 on Sunday, with the critical cases also rising to 40, from 34 the day before.
New SARS-CoV-2 cases dropped marginally to 832, from 849 on Sunday, remaining below the 900-marker which was breached on Thursday to reach a record 993.
Some 59,764 PCR and antigen rapid tests were conducted Monday, 4,000 less than the previous day.
Based on the 832 new cases, down from 849 the day before, the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate rose to 1.39%, the same on Saturday, and up from Sunday’s 1.33%.
The benchmark high-risk level is 1.00%.
Monday’s new coronavirus cases pushed the total of infections for the past 16 months to 85,104.
Of the new cases, seven were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier infections, 12 passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports were positive in PCR tests, and 114 were diagnosed from private lab and hospital tests.
A further 699 were identified through the national rapid testing programme, slightly down from 764 on Sunday.
Limassol continued to diagnose most of the positive cases through the rapid test programme, with 240 cases, up from 232, and the highest test positivity rate of 1.96%.
Nicosia was next with 192 (0.98%), Larnaca with 108 (1.25%), Paphos had 65 (1.07%) and Famagusta with 58 cases (1.47%).
Only two cases tested positive from 1,112 samples from staff and residents at retirement homes, while seven soldiers were diagnosed with Covid-19 among 577.
