COVID19: Death toll revised to 1,051, daily cases average 346

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Cyprus reported 24 deaths in the weekly Covid bulletin on Friday, raising the death toll since the pandemic started to 1,051, including previous victims backdated to March last year, with nine deaths reported in May.

Hospitalisations continued to drop within a week from 60 to 45, critical cases decreased from 16 to six, while intubated patients were down by four to two.

The past week saw 2,422 new cases, down from 3,444 last week, with the average daily rate dropping further to 346 from 492.

The Health Ministry revised its toll to include four deaths from 2021, including a 49 year old man who died in March last year.

A further 11 deaths from February to April this year were attributed to Covid-19, the youngest a 63 year old man on February 6 and the oldest a 90 year old man on April 2.

April’s death toll rose to 75, just ahead of the revised 67 in March.

January remained the deadliest month on record with 101 deaths, followed by 96 in February, overtaking the previous record of 83 last August.

Some 348, or just under a third of all deaths occurred in the first five months of this year.

The rate of unvaccinated patients treated in state hospitals for Covid-19 dropped to 38%.

A further 15 patients are still considered post-Covid, three more than the week before, having recovered from the virus but remaining intubated and in a serious state.

Total SARS-CoV-2 infections since March 2020 rose to 486,086.

104,000 fewer tests

A total of 250,791 PCR and rapid antigen tests were conducted during the past week, 104,000 less than the 354,720 tested a week earlier, as further restrictions are relaxed and tests are mandatory in fewer places.

Of the 24,057 tests in secondary schools, 19 were positive, with 43 new cases from 41,633 tests in primary schools.

Five new infections were identified from the “test to stay” programme for students and teachers, including kindergartens.

There were no new cases in special schools for the second week in a row.

With a significant drop in tests and the rate of new cases, the benchmark ‘positivity rate’ remained unchanged at 0.97% from last week, just below the safe limit of 1%.

Of the new Covid cases, five were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier infections.

A further 32 tested positive in care homes, with four positive cases in restricted institutions.