Coronavirus: Four deaths and 2,184 new cases recorded on Saturday (updated)

Four people died from Covid on Saturday while 2,184 new cases were recorded, the ministry of health said.

The four deaths all refer to men, two aged 92, one aged 83 and one aged 70 who died in hospital on Friday and Saturday.

The new deaths bring to 730 the total since the start of the pandemic. Of these 456 were men and 274 women.

Meanwhile there are 203 patients being treated with Covid in hospitals, 68 of whom are in a serious condition.

From the 68, some 27 are intubated, five are in intensive care but not on a ventilator and 36 are in a high dependency unit.

Of all people in hospital 74.39 per cent have no history of vaccination.

Nineteen post-Covid patients also remain in a serious condition in hospital.

A total of 83,766 tests were taken on Saturday, both PCR and rapid, meaning the new cases were a positivity rate of 2.61 per cent.

Of the tests 5,970 were PCR and 77,796 rapid tests.

Thirty one positives were found among 156 samples of contacts of known cases, while 59 were found from 3,032 tests carried out at the airports.

A further 308 were found among 2,538 tests carried out through private initiative while 13 were found from 224 samples at labs in state hospitals.

Among rapid tests 1,052 positives were found from the 43,782 tests carried out at private pharmacies and labs and 721 from the 34,014 taken at ministry of health rapid test sites.