COVID19: 1 death, ministry adjusts total

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Cyprus reported one coronavirus death on Thursday, a drop in new daily infections and hospitalisations, at 124 and 97, respectively, while the death toll was adjusted to include undeclared cases mostly in the previous month.

The health ministry said in its Covid bulletin that a 92 year old woman was the latest victim of the pandemic, raising the total since March 2020 to 545, of which 33 in September.

Earlier in the day, the ministry adjusted the death toll to include nine people – a 75 year old woman who died last December, and eight men and women aged 65 to 88, who died in August.

The number of patients currently admitted at state hospitals for treatment dropped to 97 from Wednesday’s 108, of whom 41 remain in serious condition, two less from the previous day.

Meanwhile, 18 patients remain intubated, one less than the day before, while 75% of hospital patients are unvaccinated.

Another 11 patients are considered post-Covid, having recovered from the virus, but remain intubated and in a serious state.

The total number of all SARS-CoV-2 infections since the pandemic started in March 2020 rose to 118,570.

The day’s PCR and antigen rapid tests conducted during the past 24 hours dropped to 51,255, around 24,000 fewer than the day before, of whom 11,959 were high school students and teachers with only one positive result.

With the lower number of tests and 124 new infections, 106 fewer than the day before, the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate dropped to 0.24% from 0.30% and well below the high-risk threshold of 1%.

Of the new cases, 16 were identified from contact tracing, linked to earlier infections, and 35 were diagnosed from private initiative and hospital tests.

A further 55 cases were identified from private rapid tests at labs and pharmacies and 18 were positive from the free national testing programme, available only to those vaccinated or recovered from earlier infections.

All of the 649 samples taken from staff and residents at retirement homes tested negative, as did 32 tests at hotels, while two of the 159 random tests at airports were positive.