Cyprus reported no coronavirus deaths on Sunday, an increase in hospitalisations to 162 and a significant rise in new daily cases to 912, above 900 for the third time in a week.
The health ministry said the death toll since the pandemic started remained unchanged at 628, of whom 31 were in December, up from 12 in November.
After a record 80 deaths in August, the number dropped to 40 in September and 20 in October.
There were more than 800 new daily cases throughout the past week, breaking past 900 to 978 on Thursday and 917 on Friday, before dropping to 268 on Saturday, due to lower testing on Christmas.
Hospitalisations rose by five to 162, with serious cases soaring by eleven, at 74.
Patient numbers have increased steadily since breaking past the 100-level in mid-November.
The number of intubated patients rose by two to 26, while 81% of hospital patients were reported as unvaccinated, up from 76%.
Fifteen patients are still considered post-Covid, having recovered from the virus, two more from the day before, but remain intubated and in a serious state.
150,000 infections to-date
The total number of SARS-CoV-2 infections since March 2020 reached 150,760.
After the Christmas break and a drop in free public antigen rapid tests available only to those who have been vaccinated, PCR and rapid testing resumed to normal levels withs 53,715 samples on Sunday.
With a distortion in daily data due to a significant decrease in tests and daily infections on Saturday, the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate peaked at 1.70%, having soared past the high-risk barrier of 1.0% the previous day to 1.65%.
Of the new infections, 22 were passengers who arrived at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 84 were diagnosed from private initiative, hospital, and GP tests.
The vast majority of positive cases at the airports were returnees, mainly from the U.K. suggesting it is Cypriot university students flying home for the holidays, including 63 new Omicron cases identified during the past two weeks.
A further 310 cases were detected from private rapid tests at labs and pharmacies, and 496 were positive from the free national testing programme, available only to those vaccinated or recovered from earlier infections.
All of the 204 samples from retirement homes were negative, while all 120 tested positive from 2,216 samples from restricted institutions.
