Coronavirus: Three deaths, 611 new cases (Updated)

Three deaths from coronavirus and 611 new cases were announced on Monday night, with a positivity rate of 1.21 per cent.

Three hundred people are in hospital, 78 of whom are in serious condition. Of the 78, 36 are intubated.

A man, aged 48, who had not been vaccinated died on Monday along with two women, one aged 90, who had received her first dose of a vaccination, and the other, aged 89, who also had no record of vaccination.

The ministry no longer announces whether any of the dead have underlying health conditions.

The new cases were identified via 50,601 tests – of which 8,829 were PCR tests and the remaining 41,772 were rapid tests.

The 8,829 PCR tests picked up the following positives: 60 from 660 contact tracing tests, six from 5,867 tests taken at the airports, 91 from 1,850 private tests, 19 from 357 hospital tests and one from 95 tests taken after being referred by GPs.

The government’s free rapid test programme picked up 412 positives (41,223 tests) while a further 22 were identified after 549 rapid tests were taken privately.

From the free rapid tests, Larnaca district had the Republic’s highest positivity rate on Monday with 1.31 per cent after 82 positives were identified from 6,266 tests.

Next was Paphos with 1.11 per cent (38 positives from 3,418 tests), followed by Limassol’s 0.97 per cent (100 positives from 10,274 tests), Nicosia’s 0.96 per cent (151 positives from 15,700 tests) and finally; Famagusta’s 0.93 per cent (26 positives from 2,805 tests).

Notably, eight positives were recorded at care homes in Nicosia from the 444 rapid tests carried out within the district. This compares to zero care home positives from Larnaca’s 457 tests.