Coronavirus: 662 new cases, one death (updated)

The health ministry announced 662 new cases of Covid-19 and one death on Tuesday.

The death was a 92-year-old woman who died at home on Monday.

This brings the death toll to 612, of whom 390 were men and 222 women.

There are 159 people being treated for coronavirus in hospitals, 59 of whom are in serious condition. Of the 59 patients, 18 are intubated, four are in the ICU without a ventilator and 37 in a High Dependency Unit.

Of all patients, 80.51 per cent are not vaccinated against Covid.

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

A total of 80,985 PCR and rapid antigen tests were carried out on Tuesday, giving a positivity rate of 0.82 per cent.

Of the 80,985 tests, 9,665 were PCR and 71,320 rapid tests.

The majority, 235 of the 662 cases, came from 40,524 rapid tests performed at private labs and pharmacies, with 159 more found out of 30,796 tests performed at health ministry testing sites.

A total of 112 cases came from 2,750 samples taken through private initiative, while 1,585 samples taken through contacts of already confirmed cases turned up 105 positives.

Eight cases were found among 337 samples processed by hospital labs while 230 samples taken through GP referrals yielded no positives.

In addition, 4,762 samples were taken at airports with 43 positives.

The total number of positives to date is 142,228.

Meanwhile, the north reported 215 cases, detected out of 19,839 tests.

Two were imported cases, 62 contacts of confirmed cases and 151 local infections.

So far the north has reported 32,363 cases and 121 deaths.