COVID19: One death, cases drop below 2,000

Cyprus reported one coronavirus death on Saturday, with new daily cases dropping further to 1,764, while hospitalisations were 201, as the government braces for removing most restrictions on Monday.

The Health Ministry said in its Covid bulletin that the latest victim was an 84-year-old man, raising the April death toll to 21 and 975 to date.

More than a quarter of all deaths occurred in the first three months of this year.

March ended with 65 coronavirus deaths, while January was the deadliest month on record with 101, followed by 92 in February, overtaking the previous record of 83 last August.

The total number of patients admitted in Covid wards in state hospitals decreased by one to 201, having breached the 200-safety barrier the past few days.

Intubated patients decreased to three, while 57.22% of hospitalised COVID-19 patients were reported as unvaccinated.

A further 12 patients are still considered post-Covid, three less than the previous day, having recovered from the virus, but remain intubated and in a serious state.

Total SARS-CoV-2 infections since March 2020 rose to 455,964.

A total of 60,286 PCR and antigen rapid tests were conducted during the past 24 hours, about 20,000 less than the day before.

With fewer tests, and a drop in new cases from 2,028 to 1,764, the benchmark ‘positivity rate’ worsened from 2.51% to 2.93%, down from the record 7.27% two weeks ago but still nearly triple the safe limit of 1%.

Of the new infections, 44 were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier infections.