COVID19: One death as cases see drop from recent high

Cyprus reported the first Covid death for December on Wednesday, raising the death toll to 598, as new infections dropped to 492 from the recent high of 613, with hospitalisations also reduced, to 116.

The health ministry said in its daily bulletin that the latest victim was a 60 year old man, with the death toll since the pandemic started in March last year including 384 men (64%) and 214 women.

The average of all fatalities is 75.8 years.

After a record 80 deaths in August, the number dropped to 40 in September and 20 in October, while November saw 12 deaths.

Hospitalisations dropped by two to 116, the same as last Sunday. The serious cases also improved, dropping to 47, from 51 the day before.

The number of intubated patients was reduced by one at 17, as 64% 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 134,965.

Testing dropped to 84,456 PCR and antigen rapid tests, about 1,000 fewer than the day before.

 

Tests in schools

About 22,100 tests were conducted in schools with 17 identified carrying the virus from 9,417 samples in primary schools, and 18 among 12,704 in high schools.

With a drop in tests and daily infections to 492, some 121 less than the previous day, the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate receded to 0.58% from 0.72%, below the high-risk threshold of 1%.

Of the new infections, 82 were traced from previous cases, 19 were passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 63 were diagnosed from private initiative, hospital, and GP tests.

A further 218 cases were identified from private rapid tests at labs and pharmacies, and 110 were positive from the free national testing programme, available only to those vaccinated or recovered from earlier infections.

All of the 704 samples from retirement homes were negative, with three testing positive among 2,516 tests in restricted institutions.