COVID19: New cases spike beyond 500 again

Cyprus saw a fresh spike in infections on Monday with 586 new coronavirus cases, despite a small drop on Sunday, with the average daily rate above 400 throughout the past week.

This was up from Saturday’s 535 cases, the highest daily tally since 10 August, suggesting the island is experiencing a new coronavirus wave.

No deaths were reported during the past 24 hours, keeping the to-date toll at 594 and the November count at nine.

Hospitalisations were up again, rising by two to 116, and two short of Saturday’s 118. The serious cases reached 46, up from 43 the day before.

The number of intubated patients remained rose by two to 18, as 72% 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 133,860.

 

103,000 tests

Testing reached a new high with 102,692 PCR and antigen rapid tests, including 20,900 samples from schools.

Of these, 14 tested positive among 7,527 samples from primary schools, twelve were positive among 12,636 in high schools, and one from 836 tests in special schools.

With a drastic increase in tests and daily infections spiralling to 586, some 249 more than the previous day, the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate dropped to 0.57% from 0.62%, below the high-risk threshold of 1%.

Of the new cases, 19 were traced from previous cases, ten were passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 62 were diagnosed from private initiative, hospital, and GP tests.

A further 354 cases were identified from private rapid tests at labs and pharmacies, and 141 were positive from the free national testing programme, available only to those vaccinated or recovered from earlier infections.

Eight of the 1,200 samples from retirement homes were positive.