COVID19: Two deaths, cases dip, infection rate up

Cyprus reported two coronavirus deaths on Saturday, daily cases fell under 2,000 marker on fewer tests to 1,834, hospitalisations dropped 6.5% to 128.

The Health Ministry said in its Covid bulletin the latest victims were two women, aged 77 and 78, raising the March death toll to 11 and the national figure to 875, two years into the pandemic.

January was the deadliest month on record with 100, followed by 91 in February, overtaking the previous record of 80 last August.

Intubated patients stayed at 12, while 54.69% of hospitalised COVID-19 patients were unvaccinated.

The number of patients admitted in the Covid wards dropped from 137 to 128.

Some 17 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 has risen to 331,508.

A total of 91,348 PCR and rapid tests were conducted during the past 24 hours, 16,000 fewer than the previous day.

A decrease in the number of tests, and new cases from 2,114 to 1,834 took the benchmark ‘positivity rate’ to 2.01% from 1.96%, double the safe marker of 1%.

Having peaked at 5,457 on January 4, driven by a spike in the Omicron variant, new cases remained below 2,500 in recent weeks.

Of the new infections, 54 were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier infections.

One infection was discovered from 577 tests in care homes.