Malta’s Covid-19 reproduction number is now below 1 after the number of cases found in the past week decreased significantly, statistician Vincent Marmara told The Malta Independent on Sunday in his exclusive weekly video blog on the Covid-19 situation in Malta.
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.
A total of 857 cases were reported in the last week – a substantial decrease from the 1,162 reported the previous week, Marmara said.
The number of tests compared to the number of positive cases has also decreased from 5.2% to 4% in the past week.
With 13 deaths reported in the last week, the number of deaths has decreased from the past week as well.
The number of people who have recovered from the virus decreased slightly in the past week to 1,075, compared to 1,191 in the previous week; and this is only 125% of the number of cases found during the same period, meaning that the number of active cases decreased.
As a result of the above, the reproduction factor currently stands at 0.80.
While this is very positive news, Marmara said that
Meanwhile, Marmara noted that as of Friday, 1.33% of the population had received both doses of the vaccine, placing Malta amongst the highest in Europe in this regard.
Turning his eye to Europe, Marmara noted that the number of cases have decreased significantly in the UK, while there have been slight decreases in Spain, Germany, and Italy too. The number of cases remained similar in France.
Concluding, Marmara said that it seems like the number of cases are decreasing across the world, but he noted that responsibility remains important especially now that certain holiday periods such as Carnival are approaching.
Social activities remain a major possible source of transmission of the virus as has been seen in the past weeks, and Marmara encouraged people to avoid these types of activities so that the positive trends of the past week can continue to be seen.