COVID19: Two deaths, fewer cases, over 200 patients

Cyprus reported two coronavirus deaths on Sunday, with new daily cases dropping further to 1,459, while hospitalisations rose to 207, of whom 29 are critical.

The Health Ministry said in its Covid bulletin that the latest victims were two women, 74 and 91, raising the April death toll to 23 and 977 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 increased by six to 207, having breached the 200-safety barrier the past few days.

Intubated patients increased to five, while 58% 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 457,423.

A total of 57,728 PCR and antigen rapid tests were conducted during the past 24 hours, about 2,500 less than the day before.

With marginally fewer tests, and a drop in new cases from 1,764 to 1,459, the benchmark ‘positivity rate’ improved from 2.93% to 2.53%, down from the record 7.27% two weeks ago but still more than double the safe limit of 1%.

Of the new infections, 58 were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier infections.

A further 81 tested positive in care homes and one new infection was identified in restricted institutions.