Malta registered 115 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, detected from 3144 swabs tested over the past 24 hours.
A further 39 coronavirus patients recovered, meaning Malta now has 1845 active virus cases out of a total 5373 cases detected since March.
Malta on Saturday registered its 50th death since the pandemic reached the country on March 6. The victim, a 77-year-old man who lived at a home for the elderly, died 10 days after testing positive.
Since March, a total of 314619 tests have been carried out.
Malta this week registered the second-highest number of tests per capita in Europe.
According to data compiled by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), for the week ending on October 11, Malta’s testing rate stood at 3,335.97 tests per 100,000 people.
Contact tracing teams are still investigating the 115 cases announced on Saturday.
Of the 121 cases announced on Friday:
- 43 were family members of previously known cases
- 12 were contacts of positive work colleagues
- 4 were in direct contact with other positive cases
- 4 cases were imported
- 3 cases were traced back to Paceville
- 1 case was traced to a social gathering with other positive cases
Until Friday, there were 12 COVID-19 patients in intensive care - one of the highest numbers since March.
According to Superintendent of Public Health Charmaine Gauci, the R factor is currently lower than 2 and hovering around the 1.5 mark.
The seven-day moving average is around 140 cases. This figure, she said, was "very high" and was reflected in hospital admissions.
The ECDC has warned that transmission levels of the virus in 23 member countries and the UK were now of “serious concern”.
It said on Friday that all EU countries except Cyprus, Estonia, Finland and Greece fell into that category, up from only seven countries a month ago.