57 new cases of Covid-19 were reported on Friday with four new deaths related to the virus also reported, health authorities said.

Today’s case numbers come after 79 were reported on Thursday: the lowest tally since 50 cases were found on Christmas Day and the first time that the number of cases dipped below 100 since 3 January.

Public Health Superintendent Charmaine Gauci addressed her weekly live briefing about the pandemic, which can be viewed below.

Giving details about the cases of the past week, Gauci said that 327 cases derived from household clusters, 101 from social gatherings, 92 from workplaces, and 11 from sports activities or gyms.  The average age of all the new cases of the virus in the past week was of 40.5.

Four new deaths were registered during the last 24 hours either, authorities reported.

An 84-year-old man, a 91-year-old man, and a 92-year-old man passed away at Mater Dei Hospital while an 85-year-old man passed away at St. Vincent de Paule.

Gauci said that 166 people are currently receiving treatment in hospitals across the island.  20 people are in Mater Dei's Intensive Therapy Unit, 8 are in the hospital's Infectious Diseases Unit, another 44 are in other wards across Mater Dei, 8 are in Boffa Hospital, 9 are in St. Thomas Hospital, 14 are in Karin Grech Hospital, 41 are in the Good Samaritan Long-Term Care Facility, and 8 are in Gozo General Hospital.

134 people have also recovered, meaning that the number of active cases has now decreased to 2,464.  Only 69 of those active cases are in Gozo.

3,237 swab tests were carried out in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of swab tests up to 627,607 so far.  820 rapid tests meanwhile were administered at the Malta International Airport in the past week, with only two tests returning a positive result: both passengers were onboard the same flight from Italy on 29 January.

33,477 doses of the vaccine have now been administered, with 6,457 people having received both doses of the vaccine.  Gauci said that the first cohort of people - healthcare workers and those over 85 years of age - have by and large been vaccinated.  Some elderly homes are still left to be vaccinated, but authorities are waiting for mandatory quarantine periods to end there before moving in.  

The vaccination of the second cohort of people began this week, while non-clinical frontliners such as police officers and army soldiers started to receive the vaccine today. People who haven't received the letter of appointment are encouraged to call 145.

Gauci said that the third cohort - the medically vulnerable - will also start to receive their appointment letters next week.  She noted that since this is a big group of people - some 25,000 people - the letters will be sent out in batches, meaning that if some people do not receive their letter next week they do not need to phone 145.

Malta has had 18,442 cases of the virus so far.  15,701 of those have recovered, while 277 have died.

After the press conference, Gauci opened up for the journalist to ask questions. The topics discussed were about the UK variant, vaccination process and also mitigation measures. 

She revealed that there are currently 15 people who were found reactive to the UK Covid-19 variant in Malta. Out of these, 7 are from the same cluster while the others are unrelated cases. Gauci confirmed that investigations are being done with regards to these cases. 

Since the threat of the UK variant became apparent, genetic sequencing tests have been ramped and around 5% of the tests being done are being subjected to genetic sequencing in order to study the spread of other Covid-19 variants. It is a known fact that the variants are more transmissible, which is why the amber and red zones for travel have to be more supervised in order to prevent another outbreak, Gauci said. 

When questioned about the prospect of spectators being allowed to watch sports, Gauci confirmed that although the virus’ reproduction factor is currently between 1 and 1.5, the mitigation measures which dictate how many people can meet must be maintained. Until herd immunity is achieved, then certain measures cannot be relaxed, as, she said, we would end up back at square one. 

Questions were asked about studies being carried out in the UK where tests are being run to see the results on what happens if two doses from different vaccines are given. Gauci said that unless the European Medicines Agency does the trials and gives the go ahead, Malta would not consider this. 

The introduction of other vaccines has to be approved by the European Medicines Agency, Gauci said when questioned about whether Malta would look into using the Russian Sputnik vaccine. 

 

Gauci also confirmed that the vulnerable people who will be receiving the vaccine in the third cohort will be receiving the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine.