Eight more peo­ple have lost their lives to COVID-19, while an­oth­er 181 peo­ple have test­ed pos­i­tive for the dis­ease, ac­cord­ing to the lat­est up­date from the Min­istry of Health.

In its up­date for to­day, Fri­day 23rd Ju­ly 2021, the Min­istry notes that these lat­est deaths have pushed up the na­tion­al death toll to 1,026 lives lost.

In ad­di­tion, the 181 new pos­i­tive cas­es, based on sam­ples tak­en be­tween Ju­ly 19th and 22nd, mean that there are now 5,783 ac­tive cas­es of COVID-19 in the coun­try, at this time.

Vac­ci­na­tion rates con­tin­ue to go up as the na­tion­al vac­ci­na­tion dri­ve ramps up across the coun­try, through the Pub­lic-Pri­vate Vac­ci­na­tion Part­ner­ship be­tween Gov­ern­ment and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

Cur­rent­ly, some 179,382 peo­ple in the coun­try are ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed, hav­ing re­ceived two dos­es of a COVID-19 vac­cine—ei­ther Sinopharm or As­traZeneca.

And some 308,661 peo­ple have re­ceived their first dos­es of a COVID-19 vac­cine, as of to­day, Fri­day, the Min­istry’s up­date re­ports.

The Health Min­istry al­so notes in its up­date:

● 314 per­sons are still hos­pi­talised for COVID-19; down from 318 pa­tients on Thurs­day.

● 5,212 per­sons are in home self-iso­la­tion; up from 5,172 pa­tients on Thurs­day.

● 106 per­sons are in State quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ties; up from 101 pa­tients on Thurs­day.

● 76 pa­tients are still re­cov­er­ing in step/down fa­cil­i­ties; up from 75 pa­tients on Thurs­day.