COVID19: 3 deaths, rise in cases, fewer patients

Three people died of Covid-19 on Monday, as Cyprus saw an increase in daily infections to 446 and a mild drop in hospitalisations to 278, with more a third of those remaining critical.

The health ministry said in its Covid-bulletin that two men, aged 61 and 72, and 85 year old woman were the latest victims of the pandemic, raising the death toll for August to 20 and to 444 since the pandemic started in march last year.

At present, 278 patients are admitted in five state hospitals of whom 98 are in a critical state, from 286 and 96, respectively, on Sunday.

The bulletin said that 50 patients remain intubated, while 88% of all hospitalisations involve people who have not been vaccinated.

The PCR and antigen rapid testing increased to 42,427, from 35,196 on Sunday and Saturday’s 61,888.

Based on the 446 new infections, 57 more than the day before, the testing total generated a benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate of 1.05%, down from Sunday’s 1.11%, slightly above the high-risk threshold of 1.00%.

This raised the total number of all SARS-CoV-2 infections during the past 17 months to 106,428.

Of the new cases, 25 were discovered through contact tracing linked to earlier infections, eight passengers tested positive in PCR tests at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 114 were diagnosed from private initiative and hospital tests.

A further 299 new cases were identified from the national rapid testing programme, of whom 31 were in Limassol, 28 in Nicosia, 14 in Larnaca, 14 in Famagusta district and 13 in Paphos.

Some 916 tests were conducted on staff and residents at retirement homes, of whom only two tested positive, the health ministry bulletin concluded.