96 new cases, active cases at 1,879

Ninety-six new Covid-19 cases and two new deaths were registered on Friday, figures published by health authorities showed.

87 people have recovered from the virus.

Two more Covid-19 patients have passed away - a 75-year-old man who tested positive for Covid-19 on 27 November and died yesterday at the St Vincent de Paul residence, and a 96-yearold man who tested positive for the virus on 28 November and died at Mater Dei Hospital. Malta has now had 166 Covid-19 patients who have died.

The number of active cases now stands at 1,879.

It is the third day out of four when the number of new cases reported has been below 100.

Public Health Superintendent Charmaine Gauci, in her weekly address, said that the seven-day moving average of cases is now 98, having decreased compared with recent weeks.

2,840 swab tests were carried out in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of swab tests up to 458,737.

Gauci said that there are 17 people currently receiving treatment in Mater Dei’s Intensive Therapy Unit. Seven other patients are receiving treatment in the Infectious Diseases Unit in Mater Dei, while 36 patients are in other wards across Malta’s main hospital.

Gauci said that there are six elderly homes where there is transmission of Covid-19, but noted that this has decreased in recent weeks.

Malta has had 10,980 cases of the virus so far. 8,935 of those have recovered, while 166 have died.

1286 rapid tests were done at the airport this week with 7 testing positive; 5 from Italy, 1 from Portugal and 1 from Switzerland.

This week the 35-44 age group was ranked up the most positive cases, followed closely by the 2534 age group.

Gauci said that this is happening because these individuals are more prone to go out and meet people. She called for persons of this age group to practice more caution as while they are less vulnerable to complications, they are contributing to the transmission of the virus.

She also noted that while there has been a decrease in cases across all age groups, the 25-34 group is still at a high percentage. The average age of positive cases now stands at 43-years-old.

Gauci once again made a statement regarding Christmas gatherings, giving three reasons as to why it is a bad idea to cross households. Firstly, social distancing is hard to keep in a room with a lot of people, masks are not used while eating and there will most probably be alcohol involved which will make it even more difficult to abide my measures.

She added that the idea that doing a swab test before going to a gathering will keep you safe is false. “This is very dangerous as when we do a swab the test, it only registers the virus if you have enough microbes in your throat to detect it, there is a chance that the virus is still growing and goes undetected.”

She also made reference to the governmental Covid-19 test website, covidtest.gov.mt, where people can register to get a swab test, which aims to make it easier for people to book an appointment.

With regard to the vaccine, Gauci said that the EU has contracts with 6 companies in total (AstraZeneca/Oxford University, Sanofi, Janssen, Pfizer/BioNTech, CureVac and Moderna) and she called for caution when speaking or reading about the vaccine as there are rumours or false information. “The best thing is to wait for the proper information from these companies and the EU.”

Asked about the 21 days gap between the first dose of the vaccine and the second one, Gauci explained that it will take some time for people to build immunity for the virus. Thus, the 21day gap will give the body more time to develop immunity and the second jab will then strengthen that immunity.

Asked for the reason behind the number of countries in the amber list having doubled from last week, Gauci said that there were places which were not always being included in the amber list as Malta had no direct flights to them. However now that Christmas time is round the corner, the authorities thought it would be best to include them considering that people might be coming home from around the globe to meet family.

Asked if pregnant women should be vaccinated, Gauci said that this has not been studied yet, so companies are telling the authorities to not give out the vaccine to pregnant women until further studies are carried out.