‘We Never Really Eliminated COVID-19’: Charmaine Gauci Breaks Down Malta’s Current Virus Clusters
Public Health Superintendent Charmaine Gauci has broken down Malta’s current COVID-19 clusters in her return to the much-requested press briefings.
Sharing a number of graphs and charts from the last couple of weeks, Gauci explained how, while the increase in COVID-19 cases was to be expected considering Malta opened its airport and even held a number of mass events earlier this summer, health authorities “never meant” to have such a surge.
“We never really eliminated COVID-19,” Gauci reminded the public, saying the island got very close to hitting zero active cases at one point but, like any other country in the world, could never really get rid of the ongoing global pandemic.
As it stands, a Paceville cluster has come up with 33 COVID-19 cases, with Santa Venera’s feast cluster also resulting in 33 cases.
Meanwhile, the now-notorious Hotel Takeover party cluster has resulted in 20 cases. Other clusters include an unnamed language school which now has 14 cases, and a summer school which has five cases.
“Contact tracing is a tiring job,” Gauci admitted, explaining that Malta’s other cases of COVID-19 are sporadic and some are virtually impossible to completely trackback.
Meanwhile, a graphic showing Malta’s active cases of COVID-19 since the virus first landed on our shores back in March painted a picture of what could be just on the horizon.
In the graph, the country’s first wave of COVID-19 which peaked in the first couple of weeks of April can be seen to be nearly replicated through the cases recorded in the last couple of weeks, with the ever-rising active cases already nearly as high.
In fact, Malta’s current active case total is 311, close to the current record of 352 which was noted on 7th April.
What do you make of these figures?
READ NEXT: Malta Could Introduce Mandatory COVID-19 Testing For Incoming Tourists 'If Logistically Possible'
