COVID19: Death rate slows despite surge in cases

Cyprus reported one coronavirus death on Saturday, as the fatality rates seems to have slowed down in recent days, despite a surge in new infections that pushed the transmission rate to a new high 4.51%.

New daily cases remained well above the 3,000 mark from last Sunday and dropped from the previous day to 3,406, with hospitalisations rising rapidly to 126, of whom 21 are in a critical state.

The Health Ministry said in its Covid bulletin that the latest victim was an 86 year old woman, raising the March death toll to 41, with the total number of Covid-19 victims since the pandemic started at 911.

January was the deadliest month on record with 101, followed by 91 in February, overtaking the previous record of 81 last August.

The number of patients being treated in state hospitals rose significantly by 12 from Friday’s 114 to 126, with critical cases up one at 21.

Intubated patients dropped to seven, while 57% of hospitalised COVID-19 patients were unvaccinated.

Some 23 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 rose to 373,658.

A total of 74,164 PCR and rapid tests were conducted during the past 24 hours, about 25,000 less than the previous day.

With a significant decrease in the number of tests, and a smaller drop in new cases from 3,859 to 3347, the benchmark ‘positivity rate’ rose from 3.87% to a new high of 4,51%, up from Wednesday’s previous peak of 4.43% and more than four times above the safe marker of 1%.

Of the new infections, 83 were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier infections.

New infections in care homes dropped to four from 615 tests, while all 251 tests in restricted institutions were negative for Covid-19.