Michael Farrugia has praised the COVID-19 vaccine for helping reduce the severity of the virus after the minister was discharged from Mater Dei earlier today.

The Minister for the Elderly and Active Aging was admitted to hospital yesterday after testing positive for COVID-19 three days ago. 

“I was doing some self-monitoring and it turned out that my parameters were not normal,” he said on social media. “I was advised to go to hospital”. 

No signs of complications were shown following further tests and the minister was released earlier today. He will continue to quarantine at home.

“The fact that I received the COVID-19 vaccine helped in not making things worse,” he said.

Everyone in Malta aged 60 and over has been administered at least one dose of a COVID-19 jab, according to data published by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

Despite the high vaccination rate, Malta was still added to the EU’s travel red list following a spike in new cases coinciding with the reopening of tourism on the island. 

As of today, a total of 2,346 people have the virus in Malta with 15 of those cases in hospital, one of which is in ITU.

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