COVID19: 3 deaths, as patients and new cases drop

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Cyprus reported three coronavirus deaths on Thursday, the same number for the third day in a row, while new daily cases and hospitalisations were reduced to 420 and 208, respectively.

The health ministry said in its Covid bulletin that two men, aged 63 and 88, and a 68 year old woman were the latest victims of the Covid-19 pandemic, raising the August death toll to 46 and to 470 since the pandemic started.

Some 48,220 PCR and antigen rapid tests were conducted during the past 24 hours, about 4,000 more than Wednesday.

The 420 new infections, 13 less than the day before, and the total tests, generated a benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate of 0.87%, lower than Wednesday’s 0.97%, but still below the high-risk threshold of 1.00%.

At present, 208 patients are admitted for Covid-19 treatment in state hospitals, 15 less than the day before, of whom 85 are critical, five less than Wednesday.

Of these, 45 remain intubated, two fewer from the previous day, and 82.2% of patients are unvaccinated.

The total number of all SARS-CoV-2 infections during the past 17 months rose to 110,518.

Of the new cases, 56 were discovered through contact tracing, 15 passengers tested positive in PCR tests at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 88 were diagnosed from private initiative and hospital tests.

A further 183 new cases were identified from private rapid tests at labs and pharmacies, while 78 were positive from the free national testing programme, available only to those vaccinated or recovered from earlier infection.

Of these, 22 were in Nicosia, 12 in Limassol, 12 in Paphos, 10 in Larnaca and 5 in Famagusta region.

Only one of 622 tests of staff and residents at retirement homes were positive.

Some 523 tests in the National Guard identified four new cases, while 29 tourists tested negative, having completed their seventh day of stay on the island.