Malta’s Covid-19 reproduction number has increased in the past week, but remains below 1 at 0.98, statistician Vincent Marmara told The Malta Independent on Sunday in his exclusive weekly video blog on the Covid-19 situation in Malta.

The reproduction factor of the virus is one of the key figures which countries across the world have been trying to reduce ever since the Covid-19 pandemic began. The aim for countries has been to reduce the ratio to a level of 1 – which would mean that one person would transmit the virus to one other person.

Malta’s reproduction number had not exceeded 1 since last May, however it did exceed that number on 4 August, when Malta was facing a renewed peak of cases.  It dropped below 1 again last week.

The increase in the reproduction number comes as the number of cases reported in the past week rose from 164 last week to 263 this week.  This is still below the totals for the previous two weeks – when 274 and 374 cases were reported.

Similarly, the percentage of positive cases from the number of swab tests has also increased when compared to previous weeks.

In the past week, 2.1% of the swab tests carried out have come back positive – similar to the 2.2% tally reported three weeks ago and identical to the figure reported four weeks ago.

Giving details about the situation with regards to the pandemic in other countries, Marmara said that in Spain while the number of cases had started to decrease, they had once again increased strongly in recent days.

The United Kingdom has seen a slight increase in cases after experiencing stable numbers for a number of weeks, while France’s increase in cases has continued unabated.

The number of cases in Germany meanwhile has continued to remain stable, while the situation is similarly stable in Italy.

Marmara said that Malta is now going into a very particular period within the context of the pandemic.

This is due to two things; because of the approaching opening of schools, and also because of the approach of the seasonal influenza season.

Marmara encouraged people to take the influenza vaccine in order to reduce the transmission of that virus low, and continued to encourage everyone to follow instructions by authorities and continue to apply social distancing.

It is important to follow these instructions in order to keep transmission of both viruses as low as possible.

Source: Malta Independent