Sixteen new cases of Covid-19 were found overnight, the health authorities said on Friday.
More details were given by Health Superintendent Charmaine Gauci during her weekly briefing.
The number of active cases is now 331 and the total number of cases so far is 30,292.
There were no deaths in the last 24 hours related to COVID-19. The death toll remains, for the fifth day, at 413.
There were 55 recoveries, for a total of 29,548.
1,761 swab tests were performed over the past 24 hours, for a total of 867,282 so far.
The authorities said that, until Thursday, 331,438 doses of the vaccine had been administered, of which 105,628 were second doses.
Charmaine Gauci confirmed that the Maltese population is responding well to the vaccination campaign. In fact 94% of people aged 60+ have been vaccinated; 67% of the 50+ age cohort have been vaccinated and 42% of the 40+ age cohort have been vaccinated as well.
The present situation is under control thanks to the vaccination campaign and also to the preventive measures in place, she said.
The 7-day moving average is 23 cases.
At present, there are 8 patients in ITU at Mater Dei and another person is receiving treatment at the Gozo General Hospital.
The present positive cases are still resulting from households or imported cases. There were no cases reported from childcare centres this week but in Primary and Secondary schools there were 4 students who were not part of a cluster and 3 cases among school staff.
Gauci said that a cluster of 11 cases was identified in foreign University students who were living together. The source of the cluster was one of the Brazilian variant cases. The patients are in hospital so to ensure that they are isolated.
Gauci said post-secondary learning should continue online so to make sure that no further clusters are developed.
The most affected age group in this week's cases was the 20 to 49 years cohort. The present average age of people affected by the virus is 41 years.
Testing is still crucial and positivity rate is now down to 1.3% of swab tests.
The Health Superintendent still urged everyone to continue hand washing or sanitizing, to continue keeping social distance and also wear masks.
Between 22 and 28 April during tests done at the Airport, the authorities found one case coming from Turkey and another one from Italy. They also found two cases coming from Bulgaria.
Answering questions from The Malta Independent, Gauci said that although the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was given approval from the European Medicines Agency (EMA), it will start to be implemented into Malta’s rollout system as of next week.
The BioNTech Pfizer vaccine, she said, will be given to children in Malta between the ages of 12 to 15 once it is approved by the EMA, following BioNTech’s announcement that it expects children from this age group across Europe to receive the vaccine this June.
The standards which outline how contact sports will resume on 10 May will be made available next week, she said. The standards, which are being drawn up by Sport Malta, will indicate if national teams, as well as clubs which practise contact sports, will be able to resume training.
Taking questions from other media houses, Gauci said that genome sequencing will continue to be closely observed to detect any variants appearing in Malta. It is essential that variants are identified as early as possible in order to place cases in quarantine and commence contact tracing of these case.
Asked about the wearing of masks on the beach, she said that if a person is going swimming, they must take off the mask immediately before swimming and then wear it once more as soon as they come out of the water.
The opening of bars and gyms will be announced in line with the relaxation of restriction measures, and both bar owners and gym services will be given a notice from beforehand to prepare for re-opening.
While Covid fatigue has been experienced by many, especially front-liners, Gauci said that measures must not be relaxed too quickly in order to curb a spread. This includes the opening of restaurants past 5PM, since restaurants are classified as being more of risk to the general public than other entities.
Restaurants which will open on 10 May will be allowed to serve alcoholic beverages to their customers, however Gauci advised the public to be careful with their alcoholic intake, as it could encourage people to ignore social distancing and the wearing of masks.
Telework is an important factor in minimizing the spread, she continued, noting that cases have noticeably dropped thanks to workers continuing their work from home.
Lastly, despite the fact that tourists are expected to arrive in Malta as of 1 June, the date should not be taken as a cut-off point for all restrictive measures to be dropped. Measures will continue to be relaxed throughout the summer while tourists are visiting Malta.