COVID19: New cases stubbornly above 400

Cyprus reported no coronavirus deaths on Wednesday as new daily cases remained above 400 for the third day in a row, dropping marginally to 434, as hospitalisations were also up at 117.

The health ministry said that in its daily Covid bulletin that hospitalisations were up by two, of whom 39 are serious, one more from Tuesday.

With no Covid-19 deaths reported for the fourth day in a row and the eighteenth day this month, the toll since the pandemic started remained at 590, of which five were in November.

At 17, the number of intubated patients increased by two, as 58% 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 SARS-CoV-2 infections since March 2020 rose to 131,462.

The number of PCR and antigen rapid tests conducted during the past 24 hours dropped to 61,424, about 5,000 fewer than the day before.

This included 16,500 tests in schools.

 

New cases in high schools

Of the 12,928 samples taken in high schools, 23 tested positive for the virus, of whom 11 were in Paphos, while nine tested positive among 3,534 in primary schools.

Due to the decrease in tests and in daily infections, three less than the previous day, the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate rose to 0.71% from 0.65%, below the high-risk threshold of 1%.

Of the new cases, 69 were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier infections, two were passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 70 were diagnosed from private initiative and hospital tests.

A further 177 cases were identified from private rapid tests at labs and pharmacies, and 116 were positive from the free national testing programme, available only to those vaccinated or recovered from earlier infections.

All of the 663 samples from retirement homes were negative, as well as 2,480 in restricted institutions.