COVID19: 1 death, new cases rise beyond 300

Cyprus reported one coronavirus death on Monday, fewer than the handful recorded on a daily basis during the past week, while new infections jumped from below 200 to 333.

The health ministry said in its daily bulletin that a 71 year old man died of Covid-19 complications on Sunday and was recorded in Monday’s results.

This raised the August death toll to 60 and 484 since the outbreak started.

Hospitalisations remained stable rising to 196, up two from the day before, of whom 76 are critical, an increase of one.

Of these, 38 remain intubated, one more from the previous day and 83% of hospital patients are unvaccinated.

A further 16 patients are considered post-Covid, having recovered from the virus, but remain intubated and in a serious state.

A higher 51,999 PCR and antigen rapid tests were conducted during the past 24 hours, 20,000 more than the day before.

The 333 new infections, 140 more than Sunday, and the total tests kept the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate at 0.64%, marginally higher than Sunday’s 0.60% and below the high-risk threshold of 1%.

The total number of all SARS-CoV-2 infections during the past 17 months rose to 111,666.

Of the new cases, 20 were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier infections, two passengers tested positive in PCR tests at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 80 were diagnosed from private initiative and hospital tests.

A further 153 cases were identified from private rapid tests at labs and pharmacies, and 78 were positive from the free national testing programme, available only to those vaccinated or recovered from earlier infections.

Of these, 25 were in Limassol, 21 in Nicosia, 13 in Larnaca, 8 in Paphos and 7 in the Famagusta region.

Four of 837 tests of staff and residents at retirement homes were positive.

None of the 270 random rapid tests on passengers arriving at both airports were negative, nor were any of the 68 tests of guests sponsored by the hoteliers’ association.