The health ministry announced 492 new cases of Covid-19 and one death on Wednesday.

The death concerned a 60-year-old man who passed away after being treated in the ICU at Nicosia General Hospital.

The death toll is now 598, of whom 384 were men and 214 women.

There are 116 people being treated for coronavirus in hospitals, 47 of whom are in serious condition. Of the 47 patients, 17 are intubated, four are in the ICU without a ventilator and 26 in the High Dependency Unit.

Of all patients, 63.8 per cent are not vaccinated against Covid.

Three post-Covid patients who are no longer infectious are still intubated in the ICU.

A total of 84,456 PCR and rapid antigen tests were carried out today, with a positivity rate of 0.58 per cent.

Of the 84,456 tests, 8,260 were PCR and 76,196 rapid tests.

The majority, 218 of the 492 cases came from 42,299 rapid tests performed at private labs and pharmacies, with 110 more found out of 33,897 tests performed at health ministry testing sites.

Fifty-four cases came from 1,984 samples taken through private initiative, while 1,513 samples taken through contacts of already confirmed cases turned up 82 positives.

Eight cases were found among 336 samples processed by hospital labs while 241 samples taken through GP referrals yielded one positive.

In addition, 4,185 samples were taken at airports with 19 positives.

The total number of positives to date is 134,965.