The health ministry announced 2,907 new cases of Covid-19 and two deaths on Friday.

The deaths were a man aged 85 and a woman aged 80, who died at Larnaca and Nicosia hospitals respectively.

This brings the total death toll to 740, of whom 462 were men and 278 women.

There are 218 people being treated for coronavirus in hospitals, 61 of whom are in serious condition. Of the 67 patients, 27 are intubated, six are in the ICU without a ventilator and 28 in a High Dependency Unit.

Of all virus patients, 72.4 per cent are not vaccinated.

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

A total of 117,045 PCR and rapid antigen tests were carried out on Friday, giving a positivity rate of 2.48 per cent.

Of the tests, 6.015 were PCR and 111,030 rapid tests.

The majority, 1,528 of the 2,907 cases, came from 50,062 rapid tests performed at private labs and pharmacies, with 910 more found out of 60,968 tests performed at health ministry testing sites.

A total of 337 cases came from 2,487 samples taken through private initiative, while 496 samples taken through contacts of already confirmed cases turned up 54 positives.

Forty-one cases were found among 408 samples processed by hospital labs while 147 samples taken through GP referrals yielded three positives.

In addition, 2,477 samples were taken at airports with 34 positives.

The total number of positives to date is 266,823.