COVID19: 1 death, new cases drop below 100

Cyprus reported one coronavirus death on Saturday, a drop in new cases below 100 and a single increase in hospitalisations.

The health ministry said in its daily Covid bulletin that an 88 year old woman died of causes attributed to Covid-19, raising the September death toll to 39 and the total since the pandemic started to 551.

However, following the record 80 deaths in August, this month also saw six days with no deaths.

New cases dropped to 99 from 109 the day before, while the number of patients currently admitted at state hospitals for treatment rose by one to 78. Of these, 32 remain in serious condition, two less than the previous day.

Meanwhile, 14 patients remain intubated, while 78% of hospital patients are unvaccinated.

Another 12 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 March 2020 rose to 119,689.

The number of PCR and antigen rapid tests conducted during the past 24 hours dropped to 52,427, around 8,000 less than on Friday.

With a lower number of tests and 99 new infections, 10 less than the day before, the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate rose marginally to 0.19% from 0.18% and remains well below the high-risk threshold of 1%.

Of the new cases, 13 were identified from contact tracing, linked to earlier infections, five were passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 24 were diagnosed from private initiative and hospital tests.

A further 45 cases were identified from private rapid tests at labs and pharmacies, and 12 were positive from the free national testing programme, available only to those vaccinated or recovered from earlier infections.

All of the 195 tests on staff and residents at retirement homes had negative results, as were 252 soldiers serving in the National Guard.

One of the 60 guests at hotels tested positive, as well as two of 249 random rapid tests at airports.