Coronavirus: Two deaths and 355 cases recorded on Tuesday (updated)

The health ministry announced two deaths from Covid-19 and 355 new positive cases on Tuesday, while there are 184 hospitalised Covid patients.

Those who died were both male while one of them, aged 77, died on August 23 and the other, aged 37, died on Tuesday. The deaths raise the total number of deaths from Covid-19 to 486, of which 64 per cent are men.

Of the 184 Covid-19 patients, 72 are in serious condition. Of the 72, there are 35 who are intubated, seven who are in ICU without a respirator while another 30 are in a high dependency unit.

Meanwhile, 14 post-Covid patients remain intubated in intensive care wards.

The 355 positive identifications resulted in a positivity rate of 0.68 per cent.

A total of 52,454 tests were carried out on Tuesday with rapid tests accounting for 44,814 of them and PCR tests another 7,640.

A total of 32,494 rapid tests taken privately returned 132 positives while the government’s rapid tests (12,320) identified a further 67 positives.

The PCR tests identified the following: 57 positives from 438 contact tracing tests, four from 3,967 airport tests, 78 from 2,656 tests taken privately, 16 from 213 tests taken at hospitals and one from 356 tests following referrals from GPs.

The breakdown of positives per district, as identified by the health ministry’s rapid tests, showed that Nicosia had the most positives with 28 but also by far the highest number of tests with 5,300.

Next was Limassol’s 24 positives from 2,540 tests, followed by Larnaca’s ten positives from 1,242 tests, Famagusta’s three positives from 1,005 tests and, finally, Paphos’ one positive from 1,082 tests.

One Limassol resident tested positive from tests carried out at care homes.