154 new cases of Covid-19 were reported on Friday as no new Covid-related deaths were reported.

148 people meanwhile have recovered from the virus, meaning that there has been a slight increase in the number of active cases up to 2,435.

3,282 swab tests were carried out yesterday, taking the total number of swab tests up to 668,617 so far.

59,702 doses of the vaccine have been administered so far, while 19,199 people have received both doses of the vaccine.

Malta has had 20,563 cases of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic. 17,827 of those have recovered and 301 people died.

Superintendent of Public Health Charmaine Gauci delivered her weekly briefing.

Gauci said that the vaccination programme is moving forward at a good pace. Currently, the second and third cohorts of groups are being vaccinated, including persons aged 80-85, as well as non-clinical frontliners such as police, AFM and CPD officers.

She also said that vulnerable people are also being vaccinated, adding that these are people who are at higher risk of having complications from Covid-19. Gauci explained that such people include insulin dependent diabetics, immunosuppressed patients, patients undergoing any immunosuppression treatment, patients suffering from cancer who are undergoing chemotherapy, patients suffering, or who have suffered, from cancer and underwent chemotherapy within the last six months, patients on dialysis, patients who were admitted to hospital for respiratory problems, patients suffering from Down's syndrome, patients suffering from cardiac disease who have in the past six months or are going to undergo a cardiac intervention, patients attending a heart failure clinic, patients suffering from cerebral palsy, patients using a BIPAP machine and people on regular oral steroids. She stressed that it is important for people with such conditions to take the vaccine.

The health authorities are also planning on starting to vaccinate essential workers - who are people essential for Malta's services.

Gauci said that the authorities are vaccinating around 2,000 people each day in total.

The Superintendent said that vulnerable people in Gozo who received a letter giving them an appointment to take the vaccine in Malta should ignore that appointment, as the authorities will send a letter next week to provide a date for the vaccination to take place in Gozo.

She said that children under 16 who are vulnerable cannot be given the vaccine at this time as the vaccines can only be given to people over that age. What the health authorities are doing to protect these vulnerable children is vaccinate their parents, and so the parents of children considered vulnerable to the virus will begin receiving a letter to be vaccinated. If a parent does not live in the same home as their vulnerable child, the parent who does must inform the other parent once the letter is received so both parents can take the vaccine.

She said that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are being administered to people aged over 55, and AstraZenica is being administered to people under that age.

Currently there are 149 people with Covid-19 receiving care in hospitals, and these are divided as follows: There are 16 people in Mater Dei Hospital's ITU, 10 in the Infectious Diseases Unit at Mater Dei, 54 in other Mater Dei wards, 10 at Boffa Hospital, 13 at St Thomas Hospital, five at Karin Grech Rehabilitation Hospital, 23 at the Good Samaritan Long-Term Care Facility, 11 at Mount Carmel Hospital and seven at the Gozo General Hospital

The moving average of the last seven days was 152 cases she said.

In terms of elderly homes, she said that the impact of the vaccine being administered is being felt. Currently there are six elderly care homes with cases, but the total number of new cases in them is very low, she said. She said most have been vaccinated.

In terms of community clusters, the majority of new cases come from households and social gatherings.

She stressed the need to adhere to mitigation measures despite people receiving the vaccine, including wearing masks, washing hands etc., especially due to the presence of the UK variant.

Most new cases this past week were people aged between 25 and 44.

Looking at the whole timeframe of the pandemic, the age group with the highest mortality rate were men aged between 80 and 84.

In terms of tests at the airport, between 11 and 17 February, 1,197 rapid tests were performed, which resulted in one German person testing positive, who is in quarantine.

Taking questions from the press, Gauci pointed out that since the AstraZeneca vaccine cannot be given to the elderly, instead they are giving it to teachers and other frontliners and essential workers. However, she did not state when the elderly cohort between 70 and 80 years old will receive the jab.

The Health Superintendent also said that being allergic to certain medicines does not mean that the vaccine would be dangerous for them. "If you are allergic to certain medicines - such as penicillin - it does not mean that the vaccine is not good for you. In terms of allergic reactions to the vaccine, there were very few people who had them, and they were not severe at all."

Regarding the virus variants, Gauci said that Malta has 52 cases of UK variant, some of which from the same cluster. Only 1 person tested positive for the South African variant.

She also remarked that the companies producing the vaccines are working to tweak and upgrade the vaccines so that they can fight off the virus mutations by providing better immunity against them.

Gauci said that Malta is increasing genetic sequencing to better identify what variants are in the country.

The American Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that people inoculated for the virus do not have to quarantine when coming in contact with a person who tested positive, and Gauci confirmed that this is being discussed in Europe.

As of yet, however, the recommendations from Europe are that they still have to quarantine.

With regard to natural immunity, those who already had the virus would have a certain amount of immunity, Gauci said, but the vaccines provide better immunity.