This is one of the few times that no substantial increase in the number of Covid-19 cases was registered after a public holiday, in this case Easter, statistician Vincent Marmara said.

In his weekly blog for The Malta Independent on Sunday, Marmara said that in other occasions Malta saw a spike of cases after public holidays. This time, however, we are noticing a drop in the number which is indicative of a cycle that is coming to an end.

The number of cases is going down, he said, and this also refers to the percentage of cases discovered in respect on the number of swab tests made. This week, it was 2.6 per cent, he noted, which is very similar to what we had in the past weeks.

The number of deaths as a result of Covid-19 is also decreasing, he added, and this is also due to the fact that the number of active cases has dropped substantially in the past month.

In the past week, the number of new cases slightly surpassed the number of people who recovered, he added.

The vaccination programme continued, he said, with 16 per cent of the population receiving two doses while more than 35 per cent have received one dose. The r-factor at this stage is 0.55.

Giving details on other countries, Marmara said that the number of cases in France has gone down slightly, a similar pattern to that of England. In Italy, the numbers are also going down whereas in Spain the situation has remained more or less the same as the previous week. Conversely, the number of cases in Germany is going up.

He said that when people are disciplined and abide by social distancing restrictions, there is always a downward trend in the number of cases recorded.