Coronavirus: one death, 220 new cases announced on Thursday (Update)
The health ministry on Thursday announced one new death, an 84-year-old man from Covid-19, and 220 new cases out of PCR tests.
The man who expired was being treated at Famagusta general hospital, the referral facility for coronavirus patients. He had been suffering from underlying conditions, but the final cause of death is attributed to Covid-19, authorities said.
That brings the coronavirus death toll to 48 (32 men and 16 women); the average age of the deceased is 75 years.
The cases figure is broken down into 175 new positive PCR tests, plus 45 positives from rapid tests taken in previous days and since confirmed via PCR.
The latest 175 PCR positives came about from 5,935 tests.
Eighty-eight positives were detected from contact tracing; 54 from people getting tested on their own initiative; seven from tests conducted at the various hospitals’ microbiology labs; and two from GPs referring their patients.
In addition, tests among workers from the various districts who are exempt from the travel bans, yielded 13 positives from Limassol; two from Larnaca; two from Famagusta; and three from Nicosia.
Another two cases were detected from tests carried out in homes for the elderly across the country.
And there were two positives from tests in schools.
Separately from the 220 cases reported on Thursday, 103 positives (from 6,164 samples) were detected among the latest rapid tests, but these are pending verification via PCR.
The tally of confirmed positives since the outbreak began comes to 9,673.
On the hospital front, 109 patients are receiving treatment for Covid-19 islandwide: 60 at the Famagusta hospital (of whom four in the high-dependency unit); 17 at Nicosia general hospital’s ICU (of whom 14 are intubated); 11 more at Nicosia general’s dedicated Covid-19 ward; 17 patients at Limassol general hospital; and four at the Makarios hospital.