More than 15,000 Covid-19 cases and seven deaths in last week

Seven coronavirus deaths and 15,386 new infections were recorded between July 8 and 14, the health ministry said on Friday.

According to the report, the new cases were detected from 122,335 rapid and PCR tests, with a positivity rate of 12.58 per cent.

The deaths concerned an 87-year-old man who died on July 9, a man, aged 76, and a woman, aged 87, who both died on July 10 and a man, aged 76, who died on 11 July. An 87-year-old man, a 76-year-old woman and an 87-year-old woman also died from the virus on July 12.

This brings the total number of Covid-19 fatalities to 1,086.

Regarding hospitalisations, the health ministry said some 117 people were treated with coronavirus in state hospitals, of whom nine were in serious condition and four are intubated.

Two patients, who stopped being infectious, remain intubated in the ICU due to coronavirus, the ministry added.

Out of the 122,335 tests, 5,265 were PCR from which 1,097 positives were found. Of those, just 24 were carried out for contact tracing purposes, from which 11 people tested positive.

Furthermore, 117,070 rapid antigen tests were carried out, resulting in 14,289 positive cases. Some 13,424 positives were detected during the 98,599 rapid tests carried out on private initiative.

Another 856 people tested positive after 18,471 free rapid tests as part of the health ministry’s programmes.

These included 85 positives after 5,702 tests in nursing homes and 81 cases found after 3,206 rapid tests in 24/7 facilities.

Meanwhile, after 550 rapid tests in the national guard, 18 were found positive for coronavirus.

The remaining 9,013 tests were carried out in the health ministry’s free testing sites for the public, where 681 cases were detected.