Cyprus reported one coronavirus deaths on Wednesday, with the number of hospitalisations dropping marginally to 56, but new daily cases rising again, reaching the 200 mark.
The health ministry said in its daily Covid report that the latest victim of the virus was an 85 year old woman with death toll since the pandemic started rosing 571, of whom 17 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.
Of the 56 patients admitted to state hospitals for treatment, one less than the day before, 18 remain in serious condition, unchanged from the previous day.
Meanwhile, the number of patients who are intubated increased by two to 8, 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 123,908.
The number of PCR and antigen rapid tests conducted during the past 24 hours rose by 4,000 to 55,143.
Some 13,525 tests were conducted in high schools, of whom 11 were positive, while only one of the 3,815 tests in primary schools was positive.
Positivity rate rises to 0.36%
With an increase in the number of tests and infections at 200, 38 more from Tuesday, the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rose to 0.36% from 0.31%, well within the high-risk threshold of 1%.
Of the new cases, 41 were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier infections, seven were passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 35 were diagnosed from private initiative and hospital tests.
A further 68 cases were identified from private rapid tests at labs and pharmacies, and 49 were positive from the free national testing programme, available only to those vaccinated or recovered from earlier infections.
All 1,260 tests in retirement homes were negative for Covid-19, as well as 13 tests of guests staying in hotels and 39 in special schools.
Of 105 random rapid tests on passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports only one tested positive, and three were infected from 1,836 samples in restricted institutions.
