COVID19: New cases up again, fewer patients

Cyprus reported an increase in new daily infections to 662, with hospitalisations dropping marginally to 138 and no Covid-related deaths.

After six deaths this week, the death toll since the pandemic started remained unchanged at 607, ten of which in December.

Daily infections rose to 662, from Thursday’s 635 and reaching Monday’s recent high of 706.

Hospitalisations dropped by one to 138, but saw more serious cases, up by three at 47.

Intubated patients increased by two to 17, while 78% of hospital patients were reported as unvaccinated, unchanged from the day before.

Five patients are still considered post-Covid, having recovered from the virus, but remain intubated and in a serious state.

 

Cases total 140,000

The total number of SARS-CoV-2 infections since March 2020 rose to 140,030.

Testing remained at high levels, with 93,840 PCR and antigen rapid tests on Wednesday, about 6,000 more than the day before, with 21,700 attributed to testing in schools.

Sixteen tested positive from 9,450 samples in primary schools, and 15 had the virus among 12,270 in high schools.

With a rise in tests, as well as daily infections, the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate dropped marginally to 0.71%, from 0.72%, below the high-risk threshold of 1%.

Of the new infections, 120 were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier infections, eight were passengers arriving at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 145 were diagnosed from private initiative, hospital, and GP tests.

A further 280 cases were identified from private rapid tests at labs and pharmacies, and 109 were positive from the free national testing programme, available only to those vaccinated or recovered from earlier infections.

All of the 505 tests in retirement homes had a negative result, as well as all of the 194 in restricted institutions and 12 tests in special schools.