Superintendent of Public Health Charmaine Gauci has said mandatory mask wearing is still necessary, despite daily COVID-19 case numbers remaining on similar levels two weeks since this law started being enforced.

“We expected that cases were going to increase,” she said at her weekly COVID-19 case briefing. “In the Spanish flu, the second wave had way more cases and deaths than the first one, and there are various reasons why this is the case across all pandemics in history.”

“All the measures we’re taking, not only masks, are helping mitigate the situation and we must keep following them. We shouldn’t lose heart and say the measures aren’t working because cases kept increasing. The case increase would have been higher had we not introduced these measures and I urge people to keep on following them.”

Malta’s seven-day moving average of daily COVID-19 cases stood at 126 when it started enforcing the wearing of mask, and although that figure had dipped to 95, it has since risen to 136.

Malta confirmed 129 new COVID-19 cases today, along with 67 recoveries. A total of 1,988 people are currently active cases, out of whom 176 are hospitalised, including 14 who are receiving intensive care.

Gauci refused to weigh in on Prime Minister Robert Abela’s recent comments that the situation is under control and that there is no need for a lockdown.

“The WHO and ECDC have alerted us that cases will keep on increasing during the winter months, and we must follow the measures to ensure the rise in cases isn’t that strong,” she responded, when asked to react to Abela’s statement.

What do you make of Charmaine Gauci’s statement?