The New Year has started with 1,030 new Covid-19 cases as the number of active cases continues to climb higher, reaching more than 12,000 for the first time since the pandemic started in Malta in March 2020.

The health authorities said that the number of patients in hospital decreased by one to 99, with seven of them in intensive care.

The number of patients who recovered was 249, while the number of deaths remained at 477.

This leaves the number of active cases at a record 12,222.

In all, 1,072,274 vaccination doses have been administered, with 224,190 of them being booster doses.

Malta has had 53,441 cases of the virus so far. 40,393 of those have recovered.