Coronavirus: Three deaths and 2,646 new cases recorded on Tuesday (updated)

The health ministry announced three deaths and 2,646 new cases of Covid-19 on Tuesday.

The deaths were of two men aged 79 and 66, and a woman aged 66, bringing the total death toll to 791.

There are 181 people being treated for coronavirus in hospital, 43 of whom are in serious condition. Of those 43 patients, 13 are intubated and 30 in a high dependency unit.

Of all patients, 69.62 per cent are not vaccinated against Covid.

Thirty-one post-Covid patients who are no longer infectious are still intubated in ICU.

A total of 104,708 PCR and rapid antigen tests were carried out on Tuesday, giving a positivity rate of 2.53 per cent.

Of the 104,708 tests, 97,534 were rapid tests, with 2,197 cases found. The remaining 7,174 tests were PCR with 449 positives.

Most cases were detected through private initiative, with 1,310 detected from 39,711 rapid tests, and 267 from 2,014 PCR tests.

Another 887 cases were recorded after 57,823 rapid tests carried out through the health ministry’s testing programmes. These included 20 new cases in nursing homes, two in closed structures, and 338 cases in primary, secondary and special schools.

Meanwhile, 89 people tested positive after 510 PCR tests carried out for contact tracing purposes and 59 tested positive after 1,022 rapid tests.

The total number of cases detected so far is 296,686.