Superintendent of Public Health, Pro Charmaine Gauci, replying to questions from the Times of Malta on its Ask Charmaine programme, said that 717 new Covid-19 cases had been reported overnight.

She also said that there had been three deaths and 216 recoveries, meaning that the number of active cases had reached 5,783.

Prof Gauci advised on the programme that there were around 100 patients recovering in hospital with 4 in intensive care. Not all patients had been admitted for complications arising from the virus. Some were diagnosed with Covid-19 when admitted for for other issues, she said.

She went on to say that a further relaxation of measures would be announced over the coming days. Prof Gauci said that the increase in cases had not shown an increase in hospital admissions, meaning that the vaccination programme was working.

Prof Gauci explained on the programme that the increase in cases, were the result of the relaxation of measures, more mixing of people, cooler weather and the BA2 Omicron variant – and had been expected.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has categorised Malta as one of four countries of “very high concern,” along with Greece, Ireland and Liechtenstein. This applies to the latest data available at week 11 produced on the 24th of March.

For the third day running the Health Authorities have failed to issue their infographic giving details on the daily number of new Covid-19 cases.

While acknowledging that the Covid-19 infographic is not being published at this time, Prof Gauci said on the programme that the Health Department are issuing some details online.

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