Malta has the highest number of COVID-19 hospital admissions in Europe, although the health authorities say the majority of patients are taken to hospital for other reasons.

Weekly figures published by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) showed that, in the week ending April 10, there were over 24 patients admitted per 100,000 people.

The weekly ECDC data provides the only insight into the situation in Malta’s hospitals since the authorities abruptly stopped providing updates on the number of people admitted because of COVID in March.

According to the ECDC, Malta’s rate stood at 24.1 patients per 100,000 people in the period under review. This is the highest-ever registered since the pandemic first hit in March 2020. 

As has been the case in the past, the increase in admissions comes a few weeks after the latest spike in community infections.

Yet, the health authorities continue to insist the majority of people admitted to hospital are only found to have COVID-19 during routine checks.

They would have initially been admitted because of other health issues, the health authorities claim.

The latest update provided to Times of Malta by public health chief Charmaine Gauci showed some 70 per cent of those admitted to Mater Dei Hospital with COVID-19 were not admitted because of the virus.

Data on ITU admissions has not been made available to the ECDC since mid-February and before the latest spike in community cases. It remains unclear why the numbers have not been provided.

Meanwhile, the ECDC report also showed that Malta’s case and death rates continued to increase in the week under review.

While the pooled rate for the EU decreased, Malta’s, together with that of France, continued to increase.

This was also the case with the death rate, where those in Malta, Greece and Iceland were the only ones to go up.