Photo Credit: Kevin Abela 

Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne said that lockdown measures put in place could begin to be lifted in the following days if the decline of new cases continues.

Fearne confirmed this in Parliament today, but warned that certain restrictions would still be kept in place until a vaccine is found.

The minister also announced that rapid testing kits could soon be widely available. The kits take a small sample of blood to tests and results are available almost immediately.

Malta has been testing thousands of these kits, and results of this could be available as of next week. If proven efficient they could be used to make testing more accessible to the  population.

The government is also looking into acquiring technology to conduct mass contact tracing, but ensured that it would not infringe on the public’s privacy.

Fearne said that he is pleased with Malta’s success of containment thanks to the public’s adherence to health directives, and said that lockdown measures would be eased “gradually based on scientific advice” 

However, he did warn that measured could be introduced if Malta encounters a spike in cases.

Malta currently has 276 active cases of COVID-19, after the Superintendent of Health Gauci confirmed just one more cases  within the last 24 hours. She has repeatedly said that measures can only be used if the rate of contagion drops below an R0 factor of 1. 

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