COVID19: Drop in number of deaths, new cases, patients

Cyprus reported four COVID-19 deaths during the past seven days, three fewer than last week, with a significant drop in new infections and hospitalisations.

Earlier this week, the Health Ministry issued a series of measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 during Sunday’s Presidential election.

It is recommended that rooms are adequately ventilated, while staff and representatives of the candidates must wear a protective mask throughout their stay at the polling station.

The health ministry said in its bulletin on Friday that the latest victims were two men and two women, aged 69 to 86, raising the death toll since the pandemic started in March 2020 to 1,291.

New cases dropped for the fourth consecutive week to 1,497 from 1,934 last week and nearly half of 2,667 a fortnight ago. Of these, 58 were positive in targeted testing in care homes, 11 in closed institutions and only one in elementary schools.

Some 65 COVID patients were in hospital, four less than last week, while 13 were in a critical state, down by one.

Eight patients remained intubated in an ICU, unchanged from last week, while five more were being treated in an Acute Care Unit, down by one.

Daily average drops to 200

Coronavirus infections since the pandemic rose to 644,160.

The average daily rate of infections dropped significantly to 213, from 276 last week and 479 a month ago.

Testing was marginally lower than last week’s level, reaching 674,166 PCR and rapid antigen tests, about 2,000 less than before.

These two factors prompted the benchmark ‘positivity rate’ to continue to improve and dropped further to 2.33%, down from last week’s 2.92% and 5.13% nearly a month ago, and just above two times higher than the safe infection rate of 1%.

Masks remain mandatory in hospitals, testing labs and pharmacies.

Free government testing sites are only available at state hospitals for visitors.