According to the plaftorm, Malta has the ninth-highest number of 7-day new confirmed cases rolling average at 1,630 cases per million inhabitants. 

Andorra and Denmark top the list with 2,730 and 2,240 respectively. Countries with an average close to that of Malta include Iceland (1,860), Ireland (1,700), Gibraltar (1,670) and the United Kingdom (1,670).

The statistics can obviously only show so much about the situation in each country, after all, different countries have different testing standards and protocols in place, while cultural and demographic differences also need to be considered.

Nonetheless, the statistics can give a glimpse of how each country is doing.

For the purpose of this exercise, Lovin Malta is comparing the situation in Malta with that in Denmark, Aruba, Ireland, Iceland, Gibraltar, the United Kingdom, the Faeroe Island, Monaco, Spain, France, the United States, Italy and Germany.

Countries with a similar rolling seven-day average of new cases on ourworldindata.org, as well as other prominent European countries have been selected for the comparison.

Of the selected countries, Malta presently has the seventh-highest average from among the countries selected. Denmark has the highest with 2,239 cases while Germany has the lowest, 272

A look at the number of confirmed cases at the same time last year shows that Malta’s rate then was 172.2 cases per million, roughly ten times lower than it is today and one of the lowest among the selected countries.

What about hospital?

The data for Malta on the website has not been updated since 18th December when it had 58 patients in hospital per million inhabitants – one of the lowest among the countries considered.

All countries have seen the number of patients in hospital continue to increase, but Malta’s rate of increase appears to be higher than that of most other countries and is likely to surpass most when it comes to the number of people in hospital with COVID-19.

Going back a year, Malta had one of the lowest numbers of COVID-19 hospital cases with the rate then similar to that today.

As for intensive care patients, the data available doesn’t go beyond 18th December when Malta had three ITU patients – equivalent to roughly seven people per million inhabitants.

The current number of patients stands at five, so it would be safe to assume that this would conservatively translate to 14 per million inhabitants.

With that rate, Malta still has the lowest rate of COVID-19 patients in intensive care.

Compared with a year ago, the number of patients in intensive care is also similar, though this must be viewed within the context of a ten-fold increase in active cases. 

In fact, the data suggests that while the virus is spreading at an unprecedented rate, the outcome on average, of a COVID-19 infection is far less negative than it was 12 months ago.

And deaths?

Perhaps one of the most indicative statistics is that for the death rate of COVID-19 cases where it is immediately clear that the proportion of COVID-19 patients dying when compared to last year has decreased in all countries.

Of the countries being compared Malta has the fourth-highest rate of COVID-19 cases ending in death at 0.54%.

It is however considerably lower than the rate registered last year when Malta topped the list with 3.5% fatality rate.

While interpretations of statistics may vary, it is clear that the large increase in active cases has not yet been accompanied by a corresponding increase in hospitalisations, or deaths.

This is likely due to the fact that the vast majority of the population has been fully-vaccinated – and in many cases, has received a booster – against COVID-19, at least against most variants.

The arrival in Malta of the highly transmissible Omicron variant, which has however been associated with a 50 to 70% reduction in the need for hospitalisation, is also likely to have contributed to the above trends.

The fact that it spreads a lot quicker but is associated with fewer negative consequences would be consistent with the observed increase in active cases but not an increase in deaths and hospitalisations.

What do you make of these statistics?