The current increase in deaths of people who are positive for Covid-19 reflects the spike experienced in December and the death-to-positive case ratio remains unchanged, health sources have told The Malta Independent on Sunday.
Over the past few days, there has been a marked increase in deaths announced by the health authorities in their daily updates.
A record six Covid-positive patients died on Thursday, while five positive patients died the previous day.
Forty-eight people have died since the start of the year, with the death toll climbing from 477 on 1 January to 525 on Saturday.
Sources explained that the increase in deaths is not a result of a more aggressive strain of the virus but reflects the increase in cases recorded in the days leading up to Christmas, where the country was registering up to 1,500 daily cases.
“When there is a spike in the community there is always an increase in hospitalisations over the following two weeks, an increase in ITU cases around three weeks later and related deaths around another week later. What we are seeing now reflects the increase in cases experienced in December. However, the number of deaths, when compared to the number of positive cases found has remained the same.”
The sources said that around half of the patients who passed away had received the booster. Many of them did not die because of Covid, but rather because of other health conditions. Such cases are, however, always reported in the daily update given by the health authorities.
Increase in child hospital admissions
Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported this week that countries with high exposure to the Omicron variant are recording record numbers of child Covid-19 hospitalisations.
“Data from Europe and the US show more child admissions in recent days than at any time during the pandemic, but severe cases are rare in the youngest age groups and Omicron infections generally looked similar to other common respiratory illnesses,” the FT reported.
Paediatric admissions in France are nearly six times greater than the previous high of August 2021, while case rates among English under-5s are more than three times higher than last winter’s peak.
In Malta, the increase in child admissions was described as “slight” by health sources.
In comments to this newspaper, Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne said Malta saw a lower increase in child admissions due to the high vaccination rate.
“In many countries in Europe Omicron has led to an increase in hospital admissions of Covid-infected children. In Malta it has been less so mainly because of the uptake of both the booster dose in adults as well as the first doses in children. Once more, Malta has one of the highest immunisation rates in 5- to 11-year-olds worldwide. However, there is still a significant portion of children who remain unvaccinated. This study in fact continues to reinforce the importance of childhood Covid vaccination.”