Coronavirus: Seven Covid deaths reported on Wednesday (updated)

The health ministry announced seven deaths and 2,549 new cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday.

The deaths were of three men aged 59, 63 and 87 and four women aged 50, 85, 92 and 99, bringing the total death toll to 798.

There are 175 people being treated for coronavirus in hospitals, 43 of whom are in serious condition. Of the 43 patients, 13 are intubated, one is in the ICU without a ventilator and 29 in a High Dependency Unit.

Of all patients, 70.86 per cent are not vaccinated against Covid.

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

A total of 97,679 PCR and rapid tests were carried out on Wednesday, giving a positivity rate of 2.61 per cent.

Of the 97,679 tests, 91,022 were rapid tests, with 2,175 cases found. The remaining 6,657 tests were PCR with 374 positives.

Most cases were detected through private initiative, with 1,230 detected from 43,719 rapid tests, and 255 from 1,952 PCR tests.

Another 945 cases were recorded after 47,303 rapid tests carried out through the health ministry’s testing programmes. These included 17 cases in nursing homes, two in closed structures, and 180 cases in primary and secondary schools.

Meanwhile, 67 people tested positive after 508 PCR tests carried out for contact tracing purposes and 88 who tested positive after 1,276 rapid tests.

The total number of cases detected so far is 298,235.