The health ministry on Monday announced the death of one man from Covid-19 and 131 new infections from 34,190 tests, a positivity rate of 0.38 Per cent.

Seventy-six people are currently being treated in hospital with 26 in serious or critical condition.

The death of an 89-year-old man with underlying health problems has raised the number of fatalities from the virus to 230. The number of recorded infections since the start of the pandemic last March has reached 33,391.

The majority of people who died from the virus were men, 154, or 67 per cent. The average age of the deceased is 79.

Of the 76 hospitalised patients, 12 were intubated, six were being treated in ICUs without intubation, and eight in high dependency units.

Health authorities said 34 new infections were detected from 312 samples collected from the close contacts of previously confirmed cases.

One new case was a secondary contact found among 158 samples.

Seventy-five cases were detected in 31,238 samples tested with rapid antigen tests and six cases concerned travellers arriving at the Republic’s two airports where 899 tests were conducted.

A further 10 cases were reported by private laboratories from 712 samples while five were detected by state hospital labs among 200 samples.

Turkish Cypriots announced 16 new infections on Monday from 5,907 tests.