Coronavirus: Five deaths, 1,701 new infections recorded in last week

Five covid deaths and 1,701 infections were recorded in the last week, the health ministry said on Friday.

At the same time, 44 covid patients being treated in hospital.

Nine of these are in a serious condition, six of whom are intubated in ICU.

A further six patients continue to be treated in hospital although they are no longer testing positive.

The five deaths – three men, aged 49, 81, 84 and two women, aged 88 and 96 – raise the total number attributed to Covid to 1,335.

The deaths reported this week occurred between March 2 and March 7.

As for the 1,701 infections, the ministry stated that these were uncovered via 59,293 tests – giving a positivity rate of 2.87 per cent.

PCR tests accounted for 1,542 such checks and yielded 141 positives – a rate of 9.14 per cent.

Rapid tests accounted for 57,751 tests and found 1,560 positives – a rate 2.7 per cent.

Tests at primary schools totaled 143 but found no positives, with a similar result at secondary schools; with 442 checks but, again, no positives.

Care home tests totaled 4,905 checks and resulted in 35 positives – at a rate of 0.71 per cent.