The reproduction rate of Covid-19 in Malta currently stands at 0.42, statistician Vincent Marmara told The Malta Independent on Sunday in his weekly vlog with the newspaper.

It comes after last week saw the least number of new cases reported when compared with other weeks since the pandemic began three months ago.  Last week was also the lowest in the last three months for the percentage of new cases when compared to the number of tests carried out.

Only 0.1% of the tests carried out throughout the past week gave back a positive result for the virus, Marmara said.

The reproduction rate of the virus is one of the key figures which countries across the world have been trying to reduce ever since the Covid-19 pandemic began. The aim for countries has been to reduce the rate to a level of 1 – which would mean that one person would transmit the virus to one other person.

Marmara explained that the rate stood at 2.2 and later 2.5 in the pandemic’s initial stages, before going down to 1.5 when restrictions started to be introduced.  As restrictions continued to be enforced, the number of new cases declined, and so did the reproduction rate to a point that it was below 1, he said.

It then rose above 1 again when, in recent weeks after the first restrictions began to be relaxed, there was an increase in cases but has since declined again to 0.42 – even though restrictions have continued to be eased.

This means that two people are transmitting the virus to less than one person, Marmara said.

Marmara notes this point with interest; it is a phenomenon being seen not just in Malta, but in other countries as well, where even as restrictions are being lifted the respective reproduction ratio has continued to remain low.

He said that this merits medical research to perhaps understand whether, for instance, the pandemic is seasonal.  Such research would help countries understand the potential effect and characteristics of the virus months in advance if cases do eventually pick up again.

As of Saturday, Malta has only 22 active cases of the virus left out of a total of 627 positive cases in the past three months. 596 patients have recovered from the virus, while 9 have died.