Charmaine Gauci Coy On Future Of Her Daily Briefings After Health Ministry Announces COVID-19 Updates Before Her
Superintendent of Public Health Prof. Charmaine Gauci refused to confirm or deny that her daily COVID-19 press briefings, which she has delivered without fail since the start of the pandemic, will be phased out.
For the first time since the start of the pandemic, today’s COVID-19 updates were announced by the Health Ministry this morning through its new official Facebook page ‘saħħa’.
Lovin Malta understands that the Health Ministry intends to keep issuing COVID-19 updates this way.
Two hours later, Prof. Gauci delivered her daily press briefing, in which she gave more details on the 14 new COVID-19 patients and the two who have recovered, and took questions from the press.
Questioned by Lovin Malta whether the Health Ministry’s announcement will lead to the phasing out of her daily press briefings, Prof. Gauci refused to comment.
“The numbers are being announced and we have a dashboard which is already showing the number of new cases, tests and recoveries,” she responded.
While the Health Ministry published the number of new cases (14) and new recoveries (2), the number of currently active cases (90) and the total number of deaths (6) and recoveries (450) so far, it didn’t publish the number of hospitalised patients, a crucial indicator on whether healthcare systems are being overburdened by COVID-19 cases.
Prof. Gauci confirmed at her briefing, in response to a question, that the number of hospitalised patients has decreased by three over the past 25 hours, with 13 COVID-19 patients currently hospitalised and no one currently receiving intensive care.
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