Cyprus reported no coronavirus deaths for the second day in a row on Thursday, with the number of new cases and hospitalisations rising to 252 and 73, respectively, as government advisors are calling for those who have been fully vaccinated to be tested regularly.
The head of the team of scientists advising the government on coronavirus, Dr Constantinos Tsioutis, said authorities need to review measures to keep COVID-19 in check as winter approaches.
He explained that an uptick in daily cases and hospitalisations implies that authorities should tweak measures.
In an update on Cyprus’ vaccination rate, the Health Ministry said that 80% of the island’s adult population are now fully vaccinated, while 82.3% have received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
The vaccination rate has not improved much, as last week’s figures stood at 79.9% for fully vaccinated, and 82.2% had received a COVID jab.
The ministry said in its daily Covid bulletin that the death toll since the pandemic started remained unchanged at 575.
However, reports of new infections and hospitalisations increased from 177 to 252 and from 67 to 73, respectively.
Of the patients admitted in state hospitals for treatment, 27 remain serious, three more than the previous day.
Meanwhile, intubated patients remained steady at six, and 67% of hospital patients were reported as unvaccinated.
Only one patient is still considered post-Covid, having recovered from the virus, but remains intubated and in a serious state.
The total number of all SARS-CoV-2 infections since March 2020 rose to 125,413.
Limassol high school students
The number of PCR and antigen rapid tests conducted during the past 24 dropped to 55,507, about 6,000 more than the day before, including about 15,600 in schools.
Of the 12,162 tests in high schools, 15 had the virus, of whom nine were in Limassol, while six of the 3,487 tests in primary schools tested positive.
With an increased number of tests and 252 more new infections, 64 higher than the previous day, the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate rose again to 0.45% from 0.38%, within the high-risk threshold of 1%.
Of the new cases, 49 were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier infections, eight were passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 40 were diagnosed from private initiative and hospital tests.
A further 103 cases were identified from private rapid tests at labs and pharmacies, and 52 were positive from the free national testing programme, available only to those vaccinated or recovered from earlier infections.
All of the 715 tests in retirement homes were negative, as were 173 random rapid tests for arriving passengers at airports.
One person tested positive from 784 samples taken in special schools and were positive from among 164 tested in restricted institutions.
