COVID19: 6 deaths, patient numbers below 200

Cyprus recorded six more coronavirus deaths on Sunday, while new daily cases dropped below the 200 level to 193 and hospitalisations remained unchanged from the day before at 194.

The Health Ministry said in its Covid bulletin that three men aged 76 to 96, and three women, 62 to 88, were the latest victims of the pandemic, raising the August death toll to 59 and 483 since the outbreak started.

A higher 32,091 PCR and antigen rapid tests were conducted during the past 24 hours, 19,000 less than the day before.

The 193 new infections, 118 less than Saturday, and the total tests kept the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate at 0.60%, the same as on Saturday and below the high-risk threshold of 1%.

At present, 194 patients are admitted for Covid-19 treatment in state hospitals, unchanged from the day before, of whom 76 are critical, six more than Saturday.

Of these, 37 remain intubated, unchanged from the previous day and 83% of hospital patients are unvaccinated.

The total number of all SARS-CoV-2 infections during the past 17 months rose to 111,333.

Of the new cases, six passengers tested positive in PCR tests at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 25 were diagnosed from private initiative and hospital tests.

A further 76 cases were identified from private rapid tests at labs and pharmacies, and 86 were positive from the free national testing programme, available only to those vaccinated or recovered from earlier infection.

Of these, 29 were in Nicosia, 23 in Limassol, 5 in Paphos, 4 in Larnaca and 4 in the Famagusta region.

Seven of 61 tests of staff and residents at retirement homes were positive.

None of the 191 random rapid tests on passengers arriving at both airports were negative.