COVID19: No deaths, cases stay above 200

Cyprus reported no coronavirus deaths on Saturday, as the number of new daily cases stayed above 200 and hospitalisations remained at 82.

The Health Ministry said in its daily Covid bulletin that the death toll since the pandemic started stayed at 588.

New daily infections dropped to 218, down by six from Friday, while hospitalisations remained at 82, 32 are serious.

Intubated patients rose to 10 from eight, and 62.2% 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 127,478.

The number of PCR and antigen rapid tests conducted during the past 24 hours totalled 48,428, around 10,000 fewer than the previous day.

With fewer tests, the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate increased to 0.45% from 0.38%, but within the high-risk threshold of 1%.

Of the new cases, five were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier infections, and 44 were diagnosed from private initiative and hospital tests.

A further 107 cases were identified from private rapid tests at labs and pharmacies, and 62 were positive from the free national testing programme, available only to those vaccinated or recovered from earlier infections.

All of the 88 random tests at Larnaca and Paphos airports were negative.