COVID19: 1 death, new cases drop further

Cyprus reported one coronavirus death on Sunday, a further drop in new cases to 78 and a gradual increase in hospitalisations to 79.

The health ministry said in its daily Covid bulletin that an 89 year old woman died of causes attributed to Covid-19, raising the September death toll to 40 and the total since the pandemic started to 552.

New cases dropped significantly to 78 from 99 the day before, while the number of patients currently admitted at state hospitals for treatment rose by one to 79. Of these, 29 remain in serious condition, three less than the previous day.

Meanwhile, 14 patients remain intubated, while 76% 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 March 2020 rose to 119,767.

The number of PCR and antigen rapid tests conducted during the past 24 hours dropped to 40,466, around 12,000 less than on Saturday.

With a lower number of tests and 78 new infections, 21 less than the day before, the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate remained unchanged at 0.19% and remains well below the high-risk threshold of 1%.

Of the new cases, 9 were identified from contact tracing, linked to earlier infections, seven were passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 19 were diagnosed from private initiative and hospital tests.

A further 22 cases were identified from private rapid tests at labs and pharmacies, and 21 were positive from the free national testing programme, available only to those vaccinated or recovered from earlier infections.

All of the 97 tests on staff and residents at retirement homes had negative results, as were all 126 random rapid tests at airports.