The r-factor for Covid-19 stands at around 0.28, which is one of the lowest since the start of the pandemic, statistician Vince Marmara said.

In the past week, we have seen a decrease in the number of active cases concerning Covid-19. We also had only 23 new cases. Apart from this, for the second week in a row, no death was reported.

“It is one of the weeks where we have low numbers when it comes to Covid-19 from the beginning of the pandemic until today,” Marmara said in his weekly blog for The Malta Independent on Sunday..

He remarked that even when one compares the new cases to the number of swab tests that are being taken, one can see that the percentage has continued to decrease, with a positivity rate of 0.2%.

The number of people recovering stayed in a similar level as that of last week and the number of active cases is less than 100.

When comparing the total number of people who recovered with the total of new cases, we see that in the last week, there were more people who recovered than we had new cases.

In terms of vaccination rate, there was more positive news, as the rate of vaccinations “remained very strong”, Marmara said.

“In fact, we have more than 33% of the population which has had both doses and around 60% of the population that has been vaccinated with at least one dose,” he said.

“These are all positive signals, and when we apply the scientific models, all of these things are taken into account since the more people you have protected from Covid-19, and the more people take the vaccine, the scientific models are adjusted according to this information.”

When connecting all this data together, Marmara said that the r-factor stands at a low 0.28. This is one of the lowest r-factors that the country has had since the start of the pandemic, Marmara remarked.

In terms of other countries’ battle against Covid-19, Marmara remarked that in France, Italy, Germany and Spain, the number of cases has also been declining.

In the UK, the cases have remained around the same level, where they had “a slight increase” in the past 2 days.

“Obviously, we still need to follow the instructions and in the meantime the world is reviewing what is happening in India and also with the Indian variant, which makes it a pandemic which we need to continue studying and understanding what the impacts of new variants are,” Marmara remarked.