The number of COVID-19 patients in hospital rose to 31 on Saturday, health ministry data indicated, with three of those patients requiring intensive care.

On Friday, there were 28 patients in hospital and two in Mater Dei Hospital’s ITU.

A 96-year-old man who was COVID-19 positive died during the past 24 hours, becoming the 447th person to die while positive since the start of the pandemic.

Healthcare workers reported 34 new virus cases over the past day. On Friday, 38 new cases had been detected.

A total of 50 COVID-19 patients were registered as recovered overnight, bringing the number of active cases marginally down to 723.

No information about the number of swab tests was available, with health authorities no longer providing that figure following a switch in focus to hospitalisation numbers last week.

 Vaccination

Health authorities are also no longer providing a figure for the number of people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and instead limiting data to the number of vaccine doses and booster doses provided.

So far, health authorities have administered 804,841 vaccine doses. Of those, 1,938 were booster doses.

Senior citizens who live in residential care homes started receiving booster doses this week, with patients deemed immunocompromised set to start receiving booster shots as of next week.

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