The number of new Covid-19 cases continues to decline, statistician Vincent Marmara said.

In his weekly video for The Malta Independent on Sunday, he said that this decline is now in its sixth consecutive week.

Marmara said that a decline has also been registered when it comes to the percentage of cases when compared to the number of tests carried out.

This has fallen from 3.5 per cent last week to 2.9 per cent, Marmara said.

The number of deaths has however remained more or less the same as in the previous weeks, with 17 victims; as did the number of patients who have recovered from the virus, with the number similar to that of previous weeks.

The good news is that there the number of recovered patients was 34 per cent higher than the number of new cases, Marmara said.

Based on these numbers, the R-factor in Malta is now 0.63, down from 0.75 last week. This is a positive sign, Marmara said.

With regard to what is happening in other countries, Marmara said that the situation in England, Germany and Spain have seen a sharp increase while in Italy and France the numbers are slightly higher than what they were last week.

He said it is important that during the Christmas festivities one takes a cautious approach and follow guidelines which have been issued with regard to social distancing. A survey carried out recently showed that 85% of the Maltese said they will be spending Christmas lunch with close members of their family, a sign that most of the people are following the instructions being given by the health authorities.

Added to this, 86% said that they will not be attending activities where large crowds are expected to be present.

Marmara said that news about a vaccination campaign that will start after Christmas is positive.