COVID19: 4 deaths, mild drop in cases and patients

Four people died due to Covid-19 on Friday, while Cyprus reported a mild drop in new infections to 525 and hospitalisations to 292.

The health ministry said in its daily bulletin that three men, aged 71, 77 and 90, and a 91 year old woman died of coronavirus complications, raising the August death toll to 16 and to 437 since the pandemic started.

The number of patients admitted for Covid-19 treatment in state hospitals dropped by one to 292, while the critical patients remained unchanged from Thursday’s 96.

The health ministry added that 90.1% of patients had not been vaccinated against Covid-19, up from 89.8% the day before.

The PCR and antigen rapid testing picked up again and increased to 59,278 from Thursday’s 36,141 tests. Based on the 525 new infections, 55 less than the day before, the testing total generated a benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate of 0.89%, nearly half the 1.60% the previous day, and safely below the high-risk threshold of 1.00%.

This raised the total number of all SARS-CoV-2 infections during the past 17 months rose to 104,994.

Of the new cases, nine were passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports, 144 tested positive in private lab and hospital tests, while 372 were diagnosed through the national rapid testing programme.

Of these, 21 were in Nicosia, 19 in Limassol, 15 in Paphos, 12 in Larnaca and 7 in Famagusta district.

Some 427 staff and residents at retirement homes were tested of whom three tested positive, one passenger was diagnosed from 269 random rapid tests at the airports and three soldiers serving in the National Guard.