Health authorities on Thursday announced no new deaths from Covid-19, while testing detected 2,536 more positives to the coronavirus.

The number of fatalities recorded since March 2020 remains at 724.

In hospitals, 226 people were being treated for Covid-19, with 76 described as being in a serious condition. Of the 76, 36 were intubated, two in ICU but not on ventilator, and 38 in high-dependency units.

In addition, 17 post-Covid patients continued to be intubated in ICU.

The health ministry reported that 77.44 per cent of those in hospital did not have a vaccination record.

The day’s 2,536 positives came from 106,890 tests – of which 6,000 done with PCR – giving a positivity rate of 2.37 per cent.

A breakdown of the latest positives: 51 from 415 samples via contact tracing; 51 from 2,573 samples taken at the airports; 307 from 2,810 samples taken by private initiative; 12 from 177 samples processed by laboratories at general hospitals; 1,319 from 46,302 samples processed at private clinical labs and pharmacies; and 796 samples from 54,588 samples as part of the health ministry’s free screening programme.

Notably, testing at nursing homes tracked 14 positives in Nicosia district, 16 positives in Limassol district, and 18 positives in Larnaca district.

In schools, the ‘test to stay’ programme detected 28 positives from 2,127 tests.

The cumulative number of positives since spring of 2020 has reached 246,354. With 724 fatalities, the crude case fatality rate stands at 0.29 per cent.