Four people, three men and one woman, died from Covid-19 and 525 people tested positive for coronavirus after 59,287 tests, a positivity rate of 0.89 per cent, the health ministry said on Friday.

This brings the total number of coronavirus deaths to 437 and the number of positive cases to 104,994.

There are currently 292 Covid-19 patients in hospital, 96 of them in serious condition. Of the total, 90.27 per cent have not been vaccinated.

The four deaths concern three men aged 90, 77 and 71 and a woman aged 91. The men aged 90 and 77 died at Limassol Hospital and the third in the ICU of Nicosia hospital. The woman died in Larnaca Hospital.

Of the 292 patients in state hospitals, 96 are in serious condition, of whom 48 intubated, three in the ICU but not on the ventilator and 45 in higher dependency units.

A total of 59, 278 tests were carried out on Friday, 7385 PCR and 51,839 rapid antigen tests.

Of the 525 positive cases detected, nine were after 3419 tests of passengers at the airports, 126 from 3727 tests through private initiative, 18 from 239 tests at hospital labs, 291 from 35,248 from rapid tests at private labs and pharmacies and 81 from 16,645 tests from the government’s free rapid test programme. Three of these were from a Nicosia care home and three from the national guard.