Live Update: Covid-19 Bulletin Malta – Tuesday 21st April 2020
5742 Mins Read
Updated 1233
Twelve new cases in Malta while 24 others recover
Prof Charmaine Gauci announced that 24 other persons have recovered taking the tally to 150. Twelve new cases were identified yesterday from over 700 tests, taking the total to 443, or 290 active cases.
These included a cluster of three positive persons related to a previous family member who had tested positive earlier last week.
A new cluster from the same family includes an 81-year old pensioner and a 48-year old, who may have exposed others at his workplace.
Other cases included a 27-year old Maltese woman who works in a private company with little contact with other staff; a 50-year old Indian man resident in Malta, a 33-year old Syrian who lives and works in Malta, and a 38-year old Ethiopian who lives in the community.
Three other persons from Hal Far Open Centre, two of them from Eritrea and one from Libya, taking the number of cases at the Centre to 41.
Updated 1140
Mount Carmel Hospital has geared up to be COVID-19 prepared by taking up several structural and procedural initiatives to make sure that all patients are kept safe during their stay at the facility.
In a statement this morning, Government said that patients who are being admitted are screened for COVID-19 and are nursed in specific areas until a COVID swab result is obtained. Moreover, all new admissions who are COVID-negative are receiving psychiatric care in admission wards, which act as holding bays, to ensure that asymptomatic newly admitted patients do not spread the virus to the more vulnerable patients in the chronic wards.
Meanwhile, specific areas in the hospital have been set up for patients who are COVID-positive and require psychiatric care, as well as for patients who are in mandatory quarantine or patients who are recovering from COVID-19.
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For the past few days, the daily briefings have focused on the increase in recoveries from coronavirus in Malta, which have now reached 126, meaning that there are now 302 active cases. This must surely be close to the ‘steady flow’ that Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne had hoped for a month ago, when expressing hope that restrictive measures serve to avoid “a tsunami of cases” on the islands.
The number of persons who are recovering from the virus in hospitals has also decreased. There are 2 patients in ITU, 16 patients in Boffa, 8 at a private hospital, and the rest are at home under medical observation.
In its regular evening update, the DOI said that 43 persons were each fined €100 during the continuous rounds Police are conducting to ensure that no gatherings involving more than 3 persons take place in public places, as per the legal notice issued by Government. In the meantime, no one was found breaching quarantine during any of the 818 inspections carried out in the last 24 hours.
