Cyprus reported two deaths in the weekly Covid bulletin on Friday, raising the death toll since the pandemic started to 1,059, with new cases dropping to 1,774, about 350 less than the week before.
The Health Ministry said the latest victims in the week up to Thursday were a 74 year old woman and a 77 year old man, raising the total for May to 17.
April’s death toll was 75, just ahead of 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 356, or a third of all deaths occurred in the first five months of this year.
Hospitalisations continued to drop within a week from 42 to 30, critical cases decreased from nine to eight, with only one intubated patient, down from four last week.
A further ten patients are still considered post-Covid, one less 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 489,963.
250 daily
The past week saw 1,774 new cases, down from 2,103 last week, with the average daily rate dropping further to 252 from 300.
A total of 74,539 PCR and rapid antigen tests were conducted during the past week, half of those tested a week earlier, as further restrictions are relaxed with use of face masks limited further as of Monday, June 1. Daily state-funded testing has also been scrapped taking place only on weekends.
Of the 170 tests in primary schools, no new cases were found. No new infections were identified from the “test to stay” programme for students and teachers, including kindergartens, while there were no new cases in special schools for the fourth week in a row.
With a continued drop in the number of tests and a slower rate of new cases, the benchmark ‘positivity rate’ rose to 2.38% from 1.7% from last week, and above the safe limit of 1%.
Of the new Covid cases, three were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier infections.
A further 25 tested positive in care homes, with one positive case in restricted institutions and two soldiers serving in the National Guard.
