84-year-old man becomes 25th COVID-19 victim

An 84-year-old man became the 25th person to die with COVID19, the Health Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

This was the fifth consecutive day when a death of a person with COVID-19 was reported.

The man was confirmed positive for COVID-19 on 18 September, and was admitted to the Intensive Therapy Unit at Mater Dei Hospital on that same day.

He remained receiving treatment in the ITU until he passed away late on Tuesday night, the Ministry said.

The Ministry said that the man was suffering from other medical conditions. The Ministry sent its condolences to the family of the victims, and appealed to the public to continue to follow the Health Department’s appeals, especially relating to hand hygiene, social distancing, and the usage of face-masks.

Meanwhile, 42 new cases of COVID-19 were announced yesterday by the health authorities in their daily update.

60 people reportedly recovered from the virus.

Malta currently has 658 active cases of the virus.

A total of 2,444 swab tests were carried out between Tuesday and Wednesday, taking the total number of swab tests so far up to 238,084.

Authorities said that yesterday’s announced cases are still being investigated, but gave details about the cases reported on Tuesday.

Out of the 38 reported on Tuesday; 11 were family members of previously known cases, 5 were work colleagues of previously known cases, 3 were direct contacts of other positive cases, 2 were from the St. Joseph’s Home cluster, another 2 were from the Casa Antonia cluster, one was an imported cases, and another was from a social gathering with other positive cases.

Malta has had a total of 2,856 cases of the virus so far. Out of those, 2,173 have recovered and 25 have died.