COVID19: Four deaths, infection rate stable

Cyprus reported four coronavirus deaths on Saturday as new daily infections continued to drop, to 1,606, together with the rate of hospitalisations and serious cases, down to 152 and 32, respectively.

The Health Ministry said in its Covid bulletin that the latest victims included two men and two women, aged 73 to 90, raising the February death toll to 87 and 852 since March 2020.

January was the deadliest month with 100 deaths, overtaking the previous record of 80 last August.

Intubated patients were down by one to 12, while 60.93% of hospitalised COVID-19 patients were unvaccinated.

The number of patients admitted in the Covid wards dropped from 155 to 152.

Some 24 patients are still considered post-Covid, having recovered from the virus, but remain intubated and in a serious state.

The total number of SARS-CoV-2 infections since March 2020 has risen to 318,773.

Positivity rate drops

A total of 98,933 PCR and rapid tests were conducted during the past 24 hours, 14,000 fewer than the previous day.

The decrease in tests and a further drop in new cases from 1,826 to 1,606 improved the benchmark ‘positivity rate’ that increased from 1.61% to 1.62%, below the 2% level for the second time in a month, but still above the safe marker of 1%.

Having peaked at 5,457 on January 4, driven by a spike in the Omicron variant, new cases have kept below 2,000 for the last three days.

Of the new infections, 62 were identified through contact tracing linked to earlier infections; none were discovered from 257 tests in care homes.