COVID19: Hospitalisations, critical cases stabilise

Cyprus saw a slowdown in the spread of the virus on Wednesday as it reported one coronavirus death, and a drop in hospitalisations, as well as new infections to 273 and 575, respectively.

The health ministry said that a 59 year old woman died attributed to Covid-19, raising the death toll for August to nine and to 430 since the pandemic started.

There are 273 patients who are currently admitted in Covid wards, down from 289 the day before, while the number of critical cases also retreated mildly from 98 to 90.

The ministry said in its daily Covid bulletin that 89% of patients had not been vaccinated, down from 89.3% the day before.

In all, 61,462 PCR and antigen rapid tests were conducted on the day, similar to Tuesday’s test total which, based on the fewer 575 new infections, allowed the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate to drop to 0.94% from 0.97% the previous day, safely below the 1.00% critical level.

This raised the total number of all SARS-CoV-2 infections during the past 17 months rose to 103,889.

Of the new daily cases, 44 were discovered through contact tracing linked to earlier infections, seven passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports were positive in PCR tests, and 149 were diagnosed from private lab and hospital testing.

A further 375 new cases were identified from the national rapid testing programme, that is available free of charge to all, except to those who refuse to be vaccinated. They need to pay €10 per test that is valid for just three days and is required to secure a SafePass to enter restaurants and other establishments.

Nicosia accounted for 40 of the positive rapid tests, followed by Limassol (34), Paphos (17), Larnaca (12) and Famagusta district (7).

Some 568 samples from staff and residents at retirement homes all tested negative, as did 181 random tests at the airports.