Malta to shift daily pandemic update focus to COVID-19 hospitalisations

The daily update of the COVID-19 situation, published on the Ministry for Health’s Facebook Page Saħħa’, will be changing format to place the “main emphasis” on hospitalisations and admissions to the Intensive Care Unit (ITU) related to the virus.

The move signals a shift in health authorities’ concerns as the economy and society slowly go back to normal, and is likely to be welcomed by business leaders who have long called for a change in strategy to bolster the economic recovery.

The daily #saħħa Covid-19 #infographic will start placing main emphasis on covid hospitalizations and ITU admissions. Today there are 29 Covid positive patients at Mater Dei, 2 of whom are in ITU

— Chris Fearne (@chrisfearne) September 7, 2021

In an announcement released on Twitter, Minister for Health Chris Fearne said, “The daily saħħa Covid-19 infographic will start placing main emphasis on covid hospitalizations and ITU admissions.”

The Minister added that there are currently 29 Covid positive patients at Mater Dei Hospital, two of whom are in ITU.

Last month, Chamber of SMEs CEO Abigail Mamo said “case numbers do not mean what they once did”, and pointed out that hospitalisation and mortality levels would be the new metric for judging the severity of the virus spread.

She said she expected people would adapt to the “changing nature of the numbers”, and consumer and business confidence would improve accordingly.

A month prior, the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association (MHRA) had also called for a better analysis of the daily cases, dismissing the figure as no longer useful to update the public on the actual situation.

“The reality is that we have most of the population vaccinated,” said the MHRA president Tony Zahra.