COVID19: One death, hospital admissions increase

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Cyprus reported one coronavirus death on Saturday, as daily cases dropped to 2,568, but hospitalisations were up to 225 from 218 as were critical cases.

The Health Ministry said in its Covid bulletin that the latest victim was a 94-year-old woman, raising the death toll for February to six and 741 since March 2020.

January was the deadliest month with 96, overtaking the previous record of 80 deaths last August.

Intubated patients increased by two to 29, while 73.34% of hospital COVID-19 patients were unvaccinated and serious cases went from 61 to 65.

The number of patients admitted at the Covid ward of the Makarios children’s hospital rose by two to 10.

Some 19 patients are still considered post-Covid, two less than Friday, having recovered from the virus, but remain intubated and in a serious state.

The total number of SARS-CoV-2 infections since March 2020 has risen to 269,391.

A total of 87,025 PCR and rapid tests were conducted during the past 24 hours, 30,000 fewer than the day before.

The drop in the number of tests and new cases saw the benchmark ‘positivity rate’ increase from 2.48% to 2.95%.

Having peaked at 5,457 on January 4, driven by a spike in the Omicron variant, new cases have dipped below 3,000.

Of the new infections, 57 were passengers who arrived at Larnaca and Paphos airports, and 349 were diagnosed from private initiative, hospital and GP tests.

A further 1,301 cases were detected from private rapid tests at labs and pharmacies, and 861 were positive from the free national testing programme, available only to those vaccinated or recovered from earlier infections.

Of the 356 samples taken in retirement homes, 10 were positive.