Coronavirus: No deaths, 128 new cases (updated)

The health ministry announced 128 new coronavirus cases and said no deaths were recorded on Tuesday.

There are 121 patients being cared for by the state health services, of whom 40 are in either serious condition or in the high dependency units.

Of the 40, 23 are intubated, five are in ICUs but without respirators and twelve are in the high dependency units.

The new cases bring to 31,124 the total number of cases recorded so far.

A total of 27,085 tests were carried out, with PCR tests accounting for 1,609 and rapid tests the other 25,476 – resulting in a positivity rate of 0.47 per cent.

Among the positive tests 78 were from 25,476 rapid tests, 29 from 241 contact tracing tests, 12 from 225 tests at the general hospitals’ labs and nine from 562 private tests.

No positives were identified from 317 tests taken among travellers at the airports, and none of the 264 tests taken after referrals by doctors returned positive either.

As for the rapid tests taken throughout the districts, Limassol once again recorded the highest positivity rate (0.63 per cent) after 48 positives were found from 7,587 tests.

Nicosia had the second highest positivity rate (0.22 per cent) with 21 positives from 9,667 tests, followed by Larnaca (0.14 per cent) with five positives out of 3,540 tests, Paphos (0.1 per cent) with two positives out of 2,097 tests and finally Famagusta (0 per cent) with no positives identified out of 1,363 tests.

In the north, 62 new cases were reported by ‘health minister’ Ali Pilli, who said a total of 4,016 tests were carried out.