Coronavirus: 273 cases from a record 57,926 tests, no deaths (Updated)

The health ministry on Friday announced 273 new cases of Covid-19 from a record 57,926 PCR and rapid tests which yielded a positivity rate of 0.47 per cent.

No new deaths reported and as such, the total number of Covid-19 deaths since the outbreak of the pandemic remains at 232.

There are 111 people in hospitals of whom 27 are in serious condition. Of the 27, 12 are intubated, two are in ICUs but not on ventilators and 13 are in the high dependency unit.

Of the 57,926 tests, 55,600 were rapid tests and the remaining 2,326 were PCR tests.

As for the breakdown of the 273 positives: 58 were from contact tracing (555 tests), one from testing travellers at the airports (502 tests), 21 from tests taken privately (970 tests), four from the general hospitals’ labs (265 tests), five from rapid tests taken privately (242 tests) and finally, 184 from the 55,358 remaining rapid tests.

Limassol pushed above the 1 per cent positivity mark, which was recorded at 1.07 per cent after 10,799 tests identified 116 positives.

Next was Paphos’ 0.27 per cent (2,601 tests and seven positives), followed by Famagusta’s 0.22 per cent (1,820 tests and four positives), Nicosia’s 0.20 per cent (15,232 tests and 30 positives) and finally, Larnaca’s 0.19 per cent (4,845 tests and nine positives).

No cases were found at care homes, with 695 such tests carried out in Nicosia and 143 in Limassol.

In businesses, six positives were found from 7,605 tests while 11 were recorded in the education sector out of 10,358 tests.

The National Guard’s 752 tests yielded no positives and neither did 136 tests taken at specialised schools.