Coronavirus: 12 new cases detected on Sunday (Update)

The health ministry on Sunday announced 12 new coronavirus cases among them two more footballers and a high school pupil.

In total 3,338 lab tests were carried out.

One of the footballers, who plays for second division club Asil Lysis, was found positive after getting tested as part of the 3,000 tests given to Larnaca district residents. The second is an Omonoia player who was tested for the second time after one of his teammates was found positive earlier this week.

Four more cases are contacts of football players who were found to have the virus last week: two are family members of a player of Ethnikos Achnas, one is a family member of a Nea Salamina player and another is a work contact of a person who was among the contacts of the Ethnikos Achnas cluster.

Another case concerns a girl who goes to a Limassol high school. She said she had fever a week ago.

Among the new cases are two Russians, permanent residents of Cyprus who returned from holidays from their country on Friday. Though they were tested and found negative prior to their departure from Russia, they got retested after one of them presented symptoms.

One person was found positive after testing before going into surgery. They had presented symptoms on Friday.

Another person is a contact of the Larnaca/Bishorpic of Kition cluster. He was initially tested negative and was in self-isolation. He was found positive after testing for the second time before his quarantine expired.

The last person is among a group of six Czech nationals who had arrived in Cyprus on September 15 for training at a Limassol company. Five people in that group were found positive. This cluster numbers now seven cases, the health ministry said.

The number of people with coronavirus in hospital is gradually rising. There are now 17 people at the Famagusta hospital, four of them in the high dependency unit.

The total number of cases is now at 1,696.

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