Coronavirus: Five deaths, 402 new cases on Tuesday (updated)

The health ministry on Tuesday announced the death of five people from coronavirus and said another 402 had tested positive after 4088 PCR tests.

Today’s results include 135 verifications of positive rapid tests of previous days.

Another 231 people tested positive after rapid tests which must be verified by PCR.

Covid-19 was listed as the cause of death for the five deceased. All had underlying health conditions, the ministry said.

They are: an 83-year-old man, a 66-year-old woman, an 86-year-old man, an 81-year-old woman and a 101-year-old man.

Tuesday’s deaths raise the total to 101, with 65 men (64 per cent) and 36 women. The average age of those who have died has remained stable, at 79.

As of Tuesday evening, there are 130 patients with the virus at hospitals operated by the state health services, of whom 32 are in a serious condition.

Of the 32, 12 are intubated, three are in ICUs without ventilators and 17 are in the high dependency unit. Seventy are in the Famagusta hospital, followed by Nicosia (31) and Limassol (29).

The 4,088 PCR tests identified 124 positives from the contact tracing programme, 135 were rapid test verifications, 111 were tests done privately, 26 were done at the labs of the general hospitals, three were passengers at the airports and three were from doctors’ referrals.

The 8,570 rapid tests returned 231 positive results, which will later be sent for PCR verification, with Larnaca recording the most positives with 86 at a positivity rate of 4.47 per cent.

Nicosia identified 61 positives from rapid tests with a positivity rate of 1.83 per cent, followed by Limassol with 43 and a rate of 3.68 per cent, Paphos recorded 11 positives with a rate of 2.95 per cent and finally Famagusta identified 11 positives with a rate of  3.29 per cent.

As for the tests, 4,088 were PCR and the majority of positive results were from rapid test verifications – 135 out of 140.

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