The number of new Covid-19 cases recorded daily reached another record Friday when 955 were identified, health authorities said.

It was the third consecutive day in which a record of new cases was reached, after the 582 registered on Wednesday and the 733 on Thursday.

It is likely that we will be topping 1,000 on Christmas Day.

The health authorities did not say how many of the cases were of the omicron variant, but given its highly contagious nature, it is probable that more cases were added to the two mentioned by Minister Chris Fearne on Thursday.

The number of people in hospital has also risen sharply, going up to 70 from the 53 there were on Thursday.

Five of the patients are in intensive care, up from three on Thursday.

With only 118 recoveries recorded, the number of active cases has inevitably shot up, reaching a record of 4,469. The previous high was 3,632 registered on Thursday.

No deaths were recorded, with the tally so far being 473.

The authorities said that 1,027,903 vaccination doses were administered, of which 184,929 were booster shots.

Malta has had 44,669 cases of Covid-19 so far. 39,408 of those have recovered.