Coronavirus: Four deaths and 786 cases on Saturday (Updated)

Four deaths and 786 new coronavirus cases were announced on Saturday.

The deaths concern two women, aged 47 and 80, and two men, aged 71 and 88. All of them had underlying health conditions. The 71-year-old man had received the first dose of a vaccine. The rest were not vaccinated.

The new cases were among 57,138  tests, PCR and rapid tests, with a positivity rate of 1.38 per cent.

There are 270 patients in state hospitals, 65 of whom are in serious condition. Of these, 31 are intubated.

The spokesman of the state health services organisation (Okypy), Charalambos Charilaou told state broadcaster CyBC earlier in the day that more people have been admitted to hospital in recent days than have been discharged. He stressed that if the situation does not stabilise in the coming days, relevant services will have to meet to ensure the health system can cope.

The new cases concern 97 people found positive during contact tracing, 161 people who got tested privately, and 14 cases detected during processing of samples by state hospital’s labs.

Three people were found positive during testing at the Larnaca and Paphos airports and two cases were people who were referred for testing by their physicians.

Forty-one cases were people who got rapid tests privately.

Another 468 cases were detected during the rapid testing carried out in all districts on behalf of the health ministry. Of these, nine cases were found during testing in care homes, five in nursing homes in Nicosia and two during tests among athletes.

In addition to these, 171 cases were found in the Nicosia district with a positivity rate of 0.89 per cent, 133 in Limassol (1.02 per cent), 82 in Larnaca (1.04 per cent), 46 in Paphos (0.97 per cent) and 20 in the Famagusta district (0.60 per cent).

The total number of cases is now 55,407.

So far 288 people died of Covid-19: 189 men and 99 women with average age of 78 years.