Cyprus reported two coronavirus deaths on Monday, as new cases rose to the second highest total of 5,024, just below the staggering 5,048 infections on New Year’s Eve, while hospitalisations remained above the 200 safety level for the second day in a row.
The number of Covid-19 cases dropped to 2,332 on New Year’s day, rising to 3,538 on Sunday, with officials attributing the rapid rise in recent weeks to the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
Hospitalisations dropped marginally to 201 having breached the 200-bed safety margin with 203 patients being treated for Covid-19 on Sunday. However, the serious cases retreated to 75 from 84.
Patient numbers increased steadily to the 170-180 level throughout December since breaking past the 100-level in mid-November, confirming fears of reaching the national bed capacity of 200.
The health ministry said in its Covid bulletin that the latest victims were two men, aged 62 and 84, raising the death toll since the pandemic started to 641, of which three in January.
December was the second deadliest month at 41, with the worst month on record being last August with 80 deaths.
The number of intubated patients decreased by one to 32, while 81% of hospital patients were reported as unvaccinated. Also, 19 young patients remain admitted in the Covid ward of the Makarios children’s hospital.
Sixteen 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 reached 177,721.
A total 164,358 PCR and rapid tests were conducted during the past 24 hours, about 5,000 short of last Friday’s record 169,476.
On increased tests and positive cases, the benchmark ‘test positivity’ rate dropped to 3.06% from the previous day’s 3.87%, having skyrocketed to an unprecedented 5.98% on New Year’s day, six times above the high-risk barrier of 1.0%.
193 passengers with Covid
Of the new infections, 141 were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier infections, 193 were passengers who arrived at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 504 were diagnosed from private initiative, hospital, and GP tests.
A further 3,169 cases were detected from private rapid tests at labs and pharmacies, and 1,017 were positive from the free national testing programme, available only to those vaccinated or recovered from earlier infections.
Of the 1,590 tests in retirement homes, nine tested positive, as did four out of 204 samples in restricted institutions. All 18 tests in special schools were negative.
