Health Superintendent Charmaine Gauci said two Coronavirus cases were recorded yesterday, while eight patients have recovered.

This brings the total number of cases to 622, with nine deaths.

In all, the number of active cases drops to 51, while 562 have recovered.

Giving details of the last days - the last press conference on the matter was given on Friday - Gauci said that 48 patients have recovered in all since then.

The ages of the reovered patients are as follows: 1 aged betwen 10 and 19, 12 in their 20s, 11 in their 30s, six in their 40s, 10 in their 50s, three in their 60s, four in their 70s and one in the 80s.

Of the six new patients registered since Friday, three are a Pakistani family wich returned to Malta on two different repatriation flights. A man, woman and a child aged 14 months are all suffering from the virus. They returned on two different flights from Frankfurt in May.

Gauci explained that one of the cases - a man - returned to Malta on 27 May and developed symptoms the day after. The other members of his family, the woman and the child, developed symptoms on 31 May and 1 June respectively. 

They had flown into Malta earlier in May, and so Gauci said that it was reasonable to conclude that while the man is classified as an imported case, his family contracted the virus from him and not from being abroad.

The other three cases are: An Englishman, aged 77, who is a patient at Mater Dei Hospital, a 23-year-old Maltese woman and a 26-year-old Indian woman.

The Englishman is a resident in Karin Grech Hospital and first showed symptoms through a fever on 29 May. The Indian woman who tested positive for the virus is a carer in the same hospital, but was quarantined after some of her colleagues also tested positive.  She had no symptoms of the virus.

Gauci said that the numbers of the virus are now stable, and they were only such because of procedures adopted from the very beginning such as isolation and contact tracing and because of the mitigation measures put in place.  These measures will all continue as restrictions continue to be relaxed.

Gauci said that the country’s reopening will be based on the basic principles of social distancing, personal and environmental hygiene, and the use of masks or visors in public.

She explained some of the mitigation measures which will be put in place in childcare centres; namely that the number of children in classes will be reduced, and that groups of children should ideally remain the same throughout the days.

Answering questions from journalists, who were physically present in the room for the first time in a number of weeks, Gauci said that now that the virus’ reproduction rate is below 0.5, legislation which stipulated that elderly and vulnerable people should remain inside will be removed.

She said that guidelines for gyms, which can reopen as from Friday, will be published soon and gyms will be able to carry out their own risk assessments based on the services they offer and the equipment they have.

She also revealed that mass activities will be limited to a maximum of 75 people, while noting that masks should not be worn in bars or restaurants by clients, but should be worn by staff.  There is a limit on capacity of one person per four square metres for these establishments.

Asked by The Malta Independent about how authorities will enforce social distancing inside bars, Gauci said that the measures put in place will be along the same lines as those which exist for restaurants, and that Environmental Health Officers and the Malta Tourism Authority will be carrying out inspections to make sure all guidelines are adhered to.

Asked by this newsroom about when training for contact sports will be allowed to begin again, Gauci said that non-contact sports is now permitted indoors as well as outdoors, but contact sports still poses a high risk.

“With regards to restrictions on contact sport, which we believe is much more of a risk, they will be looked at a later stage and be lifted at a later time”, she said.

Gauci also revealed that they had identified and tested a number of people who had attended the football-related celebrations in Floriana ten days ago, but none of those tested had tested positive for the virus.

Asked about how authorities will ensure that those people coming to Malta from the safe travel corridors stipulated in the airport’s re-opening will have spent the previous four weeks in that country, as stipulated, Gauci said that passengers will have to make a written declaration in this regard.

Closing off the press conference, Gauci said that in light of the “new phase” that Malta is entering in its fight against Covid-19, she would be ending her press conference updates, with information being passed on to the public through other means.

 

Gauci’s press conferences were, for over two months, a daily fixture – but had already been reduced to three times a week mid-way through May.