Coronavirus: four deaths, 158 new cases announced on Thursday (Updated)

Health authorities on Thursday announced four more deaths from Covid-19, taking the death toll in Cyprus to 197, as well as 158 new cases, while 153 people were being treated in hospitals.

The four deceased are: a man aged 55 with an underlying condition, who passed away at Nicosia general hospital; a man aged 88 with a comorbidity, who expired at Famagusta general hospital; a woman aged 75, with no reported underlying conditions, who passed at Nicosia general’s ICU; and a woman aged 73, again with no reported comorbidities who expired at Nicosia’s general’s ICU.

To date, 132 men and 65 women have died of Covid-19; the average age of the deceased is 80 years.

On the hospital front, of the 153 coronavirus patients 51 were in a serious condition. Of these 51, 28 were intubated, eight treated in ICU but not intubated, and 15 receiving care in a high-dependency unit.

The number of hospitalisations has declined over the past week.

Island-wide testing picked up 158 positives from 13,594 samples, or a positivity rate of 1.16%. Of the tests, 1,665 were done with PCR and 11,929 with rapid tests.

A breakdown of the positives showed: 38 cases out of 335 samples from contact tracing;  17 cases out of 765 samples from people getting tested on their own initiative; seven cases out of 271 samples processed by the microbiology labs at various hospitals; plus the 96 cases out of the rapid test samples.

Testing at the two airports, or from referrals of patients to GPs, or from migrants, revealed no positives.

With the latest data, the total number of people testing positive since the outbreak began last March comes to 30,538

In the north meantime 47 new coronavirus cases were reported, bringing the cumulative there to 2,208. To date, 14 people have died of Covid-19 in the north.