The health ministry announced 662 new cases of Covid-19 and no deaths on Friday.

As there were no new deaths, the toll remains 607, of whom 389 were men and 218 women.

There are 138 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, 78.25 per cent are not vaccinated.

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

A total of 93,840 PCR and rapid antigen tests were carried out today, with a positivity rate of 0.71 per cent.

Of the 93,840 tests, 9,817 were PCR and 84,023 rapid tests.

The majority, 280 of the 662 cases came from 51,513 rapid tests performed at private labs and pharmacies, with 109 more found out of 32,510 tests performed at free health ministry testing sites.

A total of 131 cases came from 4,140 samples taken through private initiative, while 1,785 samples taken through contacts of already confirmed cases turned up 120 positives.

Eleven cases were found among 326 samples processed by hospital labs while 168 samples taken through GP referrals yielded three positives.

In addition, 3,396 samples were taken at airports with eight positives.

The total number of positives to date is 140,030.