Three more deaths; 31 new cases; 37 in hospital

Three more deaths from Coronavirus were announced on Friday, while 31 new cases were registered and 70 people recovered, health authorities said. There are now 639 active cases out of a total of 2,929, while the number of deaths is now 30. 2,261 patients have recovered. 2,545 swab tests were carried out by Friday, taking the total number of swab tests up to 242,932.

A 78-year-old woman became the 28th Coronavirus victim in Malta, a 90-year-old man was the 29th victim, and a 94-yearold woman was the 30th victim, the health ministry said in separate statements Friday.

The 78-year-old woman had tested positive on 11 August and later tested negative on 28 August and 9 September.

She was admitted to the Mater Dei Emergency Department on Thursday and died soon afterwards.

As is the practice, a swab test was carried out and it resulted that she was positive to the virus.

The ministry said that the woman had other medical conditions.

It added that a contact tracing exercise is being carried out at Mount Carmel Hospital to test persons who had come in contact with her.

In a second statement, the ministry said a 90-year-old man had also died of the virus.

He had tested positive on 5 September, and was admitted to the Infectious Diseases Unit at Mater Dei Hospital.

He was transferred to St Thomas Hospital on 19 September, and sent back to Mater Dei Hospital on 23 September, where he died this morning.

He also had other medical conditions.

In a third statement, the ministry said that a 94-year-old woman became Malta’s 30th COVID-19 victim.

The elderly woman tested positive on 25 September, and died on the same day. She was tested as part of the routine tests that are taking place in elderly homes. In two prior tests, on 9 and 14 September, she tested negative.

The ministry expressed its condolences to the families. Thirty-seven patients suffering from Coronavirus are being treated in different hospitals, with two of them in a critical condition, Health Chief Charmaine Gauci said in her weekly briefing.

There are four patients at Mater Dei Hospital’s Intensive Therapy Unit, with two of them critical, she said when giving her weekly briefing.

There are another six at the Infectious Diseases Unit and eight in other MDH wards. There are then 12 patients at Boffa Hospital, four at St Thomas Hospital and three and Mount Carmel Hospital.

She said the highest number of new cases this week was again related to family and work clusters, while 29 were in nursing homes. Two of the cases were imported.

Gauci said that there are five cases in Gozo and the average age of the COVID-19 cases is now 45.

There will be no changes to the countries on the amber list.

She said that last week an app to aid contact tracing exercises was launched, and nearly 60,000 people had downloaded it – 43,334 on Android and 16,394 on apple.

Asked on recovered patients who tested positive again, Gauci revealed that four COVID-19 cases had tested negative but later tested positive for the virus. We are evaluating these four cases to better understand how to classify these cases based on ECDC criteria, she said.

Gauci explained that this could happen either because of a dormant virus, or if the person who had the virus before is re-infected.

She appealed that even if anyone has recovered from the virus, anyone experiencing symptoms should call the helpline 111. Asked on what is being done to tackle the outbreak and is an elderly people’s home where 113 of the 278 residents tested positive, Gauci remarked that the infection control measures were introduced to isolate the positive cases.

Residents who may have come in contact are also being kept isolated until the 14-day quarantine period is over, she said.

The situation in St Joseph’s home is under control and we’ve had fewer newer cases, she said. It was reported in sections of the press later in the day that COVID-free residents were being moved out of the home to two other residences.

“Enforcement officers are working to ensure that everyone abides by the COVID related laws. We also have other workers from the Malta Police Force, from Malta’s Tourism Authority, from the Transport Authority as well as LESA who will continue to strengthen enforcement in our country.”

Gauci said that 6 active cases are immigrants and that the 14-day cumulative number of deaths per 100,000 stands at 2.2.

Gauci strongly appealed to the public to download the contact tracing app – COVID Alert Malta as this will help identify positive cases and isolate them immediately.