Coronavirus: one death, 460 new cases announced on Thursday (Updated)

Authorities on Thursday announced one more death from Covid-19, and 460 new positives from island-wide testing as the number of hospitalised patients treated for the respiratory disease continued receding.

The latest death was a man aged 70, unvaccinated, who passed away at Nicosia general hospital’s ICU.

Following the practice adopted in recent weeks, the health ministry did not disclose if the man who died had any underlying conditions.

To date, 328 deaths have been attributed to Covid-19, of whom 215 men and 113 women. The average age of the deceased is 78 years.

On the hospital front, 247 people were being treated, of whom 63 in a serious condition or in a high-dependency unit. Of the 63 serious cases, 30 were intubated, three in ICU without intubation, and 30 in a high-dependency unit.

The Famagusta referral hospital for Covid had 59 patients in total; Nicosia general 75 patients; Limassol general 59; Larnaca general 24; Paphos 25; and Makarios hospital five.

Regarding testing, the 42,232 tests (PCR and antigen rapid) came up with 460 positives, for a positivity rate of 1.09 per cent.

That brings the total number of positives detected in Cyprus since last year to 68,442. With 328 deaths, the case fatality rate works out to 0.48 per cent.

A breakdown of the latest positives: 71 from 749 samples via contact tracing; seven from 2,426 samples taken at the airports; 128 from 2,897 samples taken via private initiative; six from 261 samples processed at hospitals’ microbiology labs; 26 from 1,065 samples (rapid tests) processed at private clinical labs and pharmacies; and 222 from 34,735 samples as part of the free testing programme.

As part of the mass testing, and concerning rapid tests only, by district Larnaca had the highest positivity rate at 0.74 per cent; then Nicosia at 0.70 per cent; Limassol 0.69 per cent; Paphos and Famagusta 0.47 per cent.