COVID19: One death as daily cases near 400

Cyprus reported one coronavirus death on Thursday, the first in a week and fourth this month, as the number of new daily cases rose to 388 and hospitalisations increased to 86.

The Health Ministry said in its daily Covid bulletin that a 66 year old man was the latest victim raising the death toll since the pandemic started to 589.

New daily infections were 42 higher from Wednesday, while hospitalisations were five more, of whom 34 are serious, down by three.

At 15, intubated patients remained the same, as 60% 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 129,158.

 

16,200 tests in schools

The number of PCR and antigen rapid tests conducted during the past 24 hours totalled 61,330, around 8,000 more than the previous day, with 16,200 tests in schools.

Five of 3,681 tests in primary schools were positive, and 17 from among 12,666 high school students.

With more tests as well as new cases, the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate dropped marginally to 0.63% from 0.64%, but within the high-risk threshold of 1%.

Of the new cases, 55 were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier infections, two were passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 57 were diagnosed from private initiative and hospital tests.

A further 189 cases were identified from private rapid tests at labs and pharmacies, and 85 were positive from the free national testing programme, available only to those vaccinated or recovered from earlier infections.

All of the 627 tests at retirement homes were negative, as well as 161 random rapid tests at airports, 208 in restricted institutions and 896 in special schools.