Cyprus reported no coronavirus deaths on Thursday, as the number of new daily cases dropped to 264 and hospitalisations rose to 80, with the health ministry revising the national death toll to 587.
The ministry said earlier on Friday that after a regular audit of hospital data, ten more cases were attributed to Covid-19, dating from December last year to October.
Seven were men, aged 60 to 86, and three women, 70 to 73. As a result, 376 of all deaths, or 64%, were men and 211 women (36%).
The average age of all deaths is 76 years.
In its daily Covid bulletin, the health ministry said no new coronavirus deaths were recorded during the last 24 hours, the eight day this month.
New daily infections dropped slightly to 264, down by 11 from Wednesday, while hospitalisations increased again to 80 from 72, of whom 32 remain serious, eight more from the previous day.
Meanwhile, intubated patients increased to nine, and 63% of all hospital patients were reported as unvaccinated.
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 127,037.
The number of PCR and antigen rapid tests conducted during the past 24 hours rose to 58,329, about 7,000 more than the previous day, including 15,300 tests in schools.
Of the 11,839 tests in high schools, seven were positive for coronavirus, and three of the 3,587 primary pupils were diagnosed with the virus.
Rates drops to 0.45%
With an increase in tests and fewer new infections, the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate dropped to 0.45% from 0.54%, within the high-risk threshold of 1%.
Of the new cases, 44 were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier infections, four were passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 35 were diagnosed from private initiative and hospital tests.
A further 128 cases were identified from private rapid tests at labs and pharmacies, and 53 were positive from the free national testing programme, available only to those vaccinated or recovered from earlier infections.
All 732 samples from retirement homes were negative for coronavirus, as well as all 160 tests in restricted institutions and 619 in special schools.
