Coronavirus: Two deaths, 1,774 new Covid cases in last week

Two deaths from Covid and 1,774 new coronavirus cases were announced by the health ministry on Friday after 74,539 tests in the week ending May 26.

The deaths, of a man aged 77 and a woman aged 74 on May 20 and May 21 respectively, bring the total number of deaths attributed to Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic to 1,059.

There are currently 30 Covid patients in state hospitals, eight of them in serious condition. Of the eight, four are in the ICU but not on a ventilator and one is intubated. In addition, ten patients who are no longer infectious remain intubated in the ICU, the ministry said.

A total of 74,539 tests were carried out in the week of May 20 to 26, with the 1,774 testing positive giving a positivity rate of 2.3 per cent. This brings the total number of cases since the start of the pandemic to 489,963.

PCR tests accounted for 5,133 of the total carried out and led to the detection of 238 positive cases, a rate of 4.64 per cent.

The bulk, 69,406 were rapid tests and resulted in 1,536 positive cases, a positivity rate of 2.21 per cent.

Three of the cases were from 91 PCR tests following contact tracing, 187 cases were from 3,611 PCR tests as a result of private initiative and 1,445 positive cases were from 57,139 rapid tests, also from private initiative.

Moreover, 12,267 rapid tests under the health ministry’s programmes led to the detection of 91 positive cases. Of these 63 were from 3,029 tests at its testing sites, two from 635 tests in the national guard, 25 from 3,698 tests in care homes and one from 4,747 tests in closed facilities. No cases were detected from 170 tests in primary education.