Coronavirus: no deaths, 144 people test positive on Thursday (Updated)

Health authorities on Thursday announced 144 new positives from testing for Covid-19, while the number of hospitalised declined slightly from 24 hours earlier.

No new fatalities were reported, with the death toll remaining at 566.

In total, 58 people (down from 64 a day ago) were being treated for Covid-19 in hospitals, of whom 24 in a serious condition. Of those in a serious condition, nine were intubated, two in ICU but not on a ventilator, and 13 in high-dependency units.

In addition, three post-Covid patients continued to be intubated in ICU.

The health ministry said 55.18 per cent of those in hospital did not have a record of vaccination.

The 144 new positives came from 55,422 tests – of which 4,387 were done with PCR. The overall positivity rate for the day stood at 0.26 per cent.

A breakdown of the 144 positives: 26 from contact tracing; 12 from samples taken at the airports; 26 through private initiative; one from samples processed by the microbiology laboratories at the general hospitals; 57 from samples processed at private clinical labs and pharmacies; and 22 through the government’s free testing programme.

Notably, no positives were tracked in care homes. Meanwhile 15,761 tests at primary and secondary schools across all districts yielded just six positives.

The cumulative number of positives detected since the outbreak last year comes to 122,996. With 566 fatalities, the case fatality rate works out to 0.46 per cent.