There were no deaths attributed to Covid-19 on Thursday as Cyprus saw a stabilisation in daily cases that rose marginally to 144, while hospitalisations dropped to 58.
The health ministry said in its daily Covid bulletin that the death toll since the pandemic started remained unchanged at 566, of whom 14 died in October.
After a record 80 deaths in August, the number dropped to 40 in September, with ten days of no Covid-related deaths. So far, October has also seen ten days of no Covid-related deaths in Cyprus.
New daily cases increased from 143 to 144, while the number of patients admitted at state hospitals for treatment was reduced by six to 64. Of these, 24 remain in serious condition, the same as the previous day.
Meanwhile, nine patients remain intubated, two less from the previous day, and 55% of hospital patients are reported as unvaccinated.
Another three patients are still 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 122,996.
The number of PCR and antigen rapid tests conducted during the past 24 hours rose to 55,422, about 9,000 more than Wednesday.
15,700 tests in schools
Of these, 12,341 were tests in high schools, of whom four were positive, while of the 3,420 tests in primary schools two were positive.
With a bigger number of tests and a marginal increase in new infections to 144, one more than the day before, the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rose to 0.26% from Wednesday’s 0.31%, well within the high-risk threshold of 1%.
Of the new cases, 26 were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier infections, 12 testing on passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 27 were diagnosed from private initiative and hospital tests.
A further 57 cases were identified from private rapid tests at labs and pharmacies, and 22 were positive from the free national testing programme, available only to those vaccinated or recovered from earlier infections.
All of the 736 samples at retirement homes tested negative, as did 1,472 tests at restricted institutions, 761 tests at special schools and 25 tests of guests at hotels.
