There were more Covid-19 recoveries than new infections over the past week, and the r-factor has again dropped below 1, statistician Vincent Marmara said in his weekly video blog for The Malta Independent on Sunday.
The reproduction factor 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 ratio to a level of 1 – which would mean that one person would transmit the virus to one other person.
The reproduction number is based on a variety of factors, such as the source of new cases – for instance, whether they are imported or whether they are part of particular clusters – and the amount of testing being carried out.
Marmara said there was a slight decrease in new cases over the past week. The same trend was observed over the last four weeks. “While the numbers are still relatively high, there was no increase. On the other hand, the numbers are decreasing.”
The number of positive cases as a percentage of tests carried out is also going down. The percentage for this week was 4%. While the number of deaths this week was the highest yet, the numbers are similar to those registered over the past few weeks.
This week also saw the highest ever number of recoveries – 891 – and the numbers are increasing week on week. This week, in fact, there were more recoveries than new cases.
“When looking at the data, we can see that the r-factor 0.93. One hopes that now that the r-factor is below one, the number of new cases will keep decreasing over the coming weeks,” Marmara said.
There are similar trends in other European countries like France, Spain, the UK and Italy, although the amount of new daily cases remains quite high.
“This is a particular pandemic with a number of cycles. We are currently going through a phase where the number of cases is decreasing slowly. It is important to analyse the situation factually but also keep in mind our collective responsibility. What is happening is a result of decisions taken and measures implemented,” Marmara said.
“Christmas is around the corner, but this year will be different from previous ones. Let us be responsible and consider the risks. We can still try to enjoy Christmas in these different circumstances, but we should sustain the results seen over the past weeks and do our part to stop the virus from spreading.”