Coronavirus cases surge to 320, ninth person dies

Another person who had contracted coronavirus died on Wednesday, raising the death toll in the Republic of Cyprus to nine, while confirmed cases made the largest jump in a single day as 58 more people were confirmed coronavirus positive.

The new cases confirmed in the Republic of Cyprus by the Health Ministry during its daily briefing on Wednesday brought the total to 320, including 10 that were confirmed within the British Bases, with Health Minister Constantinos Ioannou describing the situation as “very serious.”

In a tweet following the announcement of the new cases, Ioannou said that the steep rise in the number of people contracting the virus “unfortunately affirm that there was no compliance to the [initial] restriction measures, something that forced us to impose further restrictions.”

Ioannou urged the public to stay home, and “if you must go out, keep safe distances and take self-protection measures. It is the only way to contain the spread of the virus.”

A 66-year-old man was the ninth to die after being infected with the virus, with the death toll reaching nine, eight of which are men, and seven of which had underlying health conditions.

From a sum of 779 lab tests for coronavirus conducted on Wednesday, 58 emerged positive for the virus, involving 24 people who had been traced as contacts of other known cases, two people within the British Bases, and 32 people whose history is still under examination as it remains unclear how they had contracted the virus.

Among the new cases is a five-year-old child.

Seven new cases were also confirmed in the north on Wednesday, with the total cases there reaching 77, while two people who had contracted the virus have died.

The Republic of Cyprus has so far conducted 8,176 lab tests, of which 320 have so far emerged positive for coronavirus, 181 of which had contracted the virus from other known cases, while 24 have so far recovered.

Globally, coronavirus has so far infected some 900,000 people, while roughly 45,000 have died so far, with the figures showing sharp increases on a daily basis.