Three deaths from coronavirus and 446 new cases were announced on Monday, out of 42,427 PCR and rapid tests, a positivity rate of 1.05 per cent.

The deaths were two men, aged 61 and 72, and a woman aged 85. So far 444 deaths have been recorded: 290 men and 154 women with an average age of 77.1 years.

There are 278 people in hospital with the virus, of whom 98 are in serious condition. Fifty patients are intubated. According to the health ministry, 88.1 per cent of hospitalised patients are not vaccinated.

Twenty-five of the new cases were detected during contact tracing, 91 are people who got PCR tests privately and 197 people who got rapid tests privately, 18 were among samples processed in state hospitals’ labs and five people who were referred for testing by their physicians.

Eight cases were detected during testing at the Paphos and Larnaca airports.

Another 102 cases were among the rapid tests carried out in all districts by the health ministry. Two of these were cases detected in nursing homes in Nicosia. The rest concern 28 cases detected in the Nicosia district among 5,759 tests, 31 in Limassol (3,318), 14 in Larnaca (1,693), 13 in Paphos (1,575), and 14 in the Famagusta district (1,433).

So far 106,428 cases have been recorded.