Coronavirus: three deaths, 433 more people test positive on Wednesday (Updated)

The health ministry announced three deaths from Covid-19 on Wednesday and said 433 more people had tested positive for the virus from 44,475 PCR and rapid tests, a positivity rate of 0.97 per cent.

The deaths concerned one man aged 56 who died on Sunday, and two women, one aged 84 and the other aged 71. They both died on Monday. All three deaths were at the Nicosia hospital.

There are 223 people in hospitals of whom 90 are in serious condition. Of these, 47 are intubated. The ministry said 81.1 per cent of those admitted to hospital are unvaccinated.

Of the 44,475 tests on Wednesday there were 5,927 PCR tests with the remaining 38,548 comprising of rapid tests.

The 295 contact tracing tests identified 42 positives while the 2,407 travellers tested at the airports returned seven positives.

A further 2,964 tests taken privately yielded 89 positives and 193 tests taken at the hospitals uncovered 13 positives.

A total of 25,961 rapid tests taken privately returned 194 positives while 12,587 rapid tests taken via the government’s screening programme identified 88 positives.

As per the government’s rapid test programme, Nicosia conducted 5,299 such examinations and identified 31 positives.

Limassol carried out 2,636 such tests and found 25 positives while Larnaca’s 1,339 tests yielded six positives.

Paphos’ 1,180 tests identified 15 positives and, finally, Famagusta’s 1,224 tests uncovered ten positives.

The total number of deaths from Covid-19 rose to 467 on Wednesday, while men account for about two thirds of the fatalities (299 or 64 per cent).