Uptick In COVID-19 Cases Sees Malta Taken Off EU Green Travel List
A recent uptick of new COVID-19 cases has seen Malta removed from the EU’s green travel list.
With winter slowly creeping in, the virus has again started to surge again, especially across Europe. While Malta’s high vaccination rate has seen hospitalisations remain relatively low, the number of active cases has steadily increased over the past two weeks.
There are currently 704 known active cases of the virus in Malta, compared with 204 three weeks ago.
Malta was the only country on the bloc’s green travel list – but has now been moved to the orange list, along with most other member states.
The European Centre for Disease Control updated Malta’s classification as part of its weekly review of the COVID-19 situation across member states.
The decision is taken on the basis of the number of active cases recorded in each country, as well the testing positivity rate – the percentage of positive cases out of all of those tested.
The change will not see any consequences, with the system mainly serving the purpose of informing travellers about the situation with the virus across different destinations.
Europe has once again found itself at the epicentre of the COVID-19 virus, with several countries recording record numbers of new cases and deaths and introducing new measures to curb the spread.
While numbers in Malta have also started increasing, there has been no corresponding increase in hospital admissions, with no deaths recorded over the past two weeks.
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