Why are masks mandatory on planes but not buses? Isn’t this a double standard? – Mark Borg
The quality of supplied air on board an aircraft along with other measures in place, including the mandatory use of masks on board and the requirements for vaccination/recovery or testing, reduce the risk of contracting COVID-19.
The duration of exposure is a major variable in the risk exposed. Since flights are usually a couple of hours, the risk is higher than journeys which are of shorter transit, such as buses. Although masks are not mandatory on public transport, they are still highly recommended.
How are the authorities going to know the state of COVID on the island without proper statistics, especially since results from self-testing kits are not collected and do not form part of the official tally? – Angelo Grima
COVID-19 surveillance has been key from the start of the pandemic. As we move from the acute phase of the pandemic, surveillance remains essential to monitor COVID-19 incidence, assessment of the severity from hospital admissions, detection and monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 variants at an early stage of local circulation and support in the monitoring of vaccine effectiveness. Surveillance is crucial to inform on policy measures.
The main sources of information are from testing at registered centres (testing for symptomatic cases, testing of contacts, screening, tests for travel purposes) and testing of persons admitted to hospital. Positivity rate monitoring is important and data for the denominator is obtained from the total tests which are registered from swabbing centres.
A crucial source of data on severity are hospital admissions for COVID-19 complications and ICU admissions which remain the most important and stable indicator to use. Deaths are another source of data for monitoring of severity. Typically, surveillance does not identify all the cases which are ongoing in the community and trends are monitored which are very reliable, provided a sufficient amount of sampling continues.
I am 76 years old and took the first booster. Do I need to take a second booster? Why? – Mikelina Camilleri
The COVID-19 pandemic response has had a global impact. Protection from severe disease and death has been to the credit of the wide administration of COVID-19 vaccines.
In 33 countries across the WHO European Region, an estimated 470,000 lives had been saved among those aged 60 years and over, as of November 2021. Although the effectiveness of current vaccines in preventing infections with the Omicron variant is lower than it was for previous variants, COVID-19 vaccines remain highly effective in protecting all age groups against severe disease, hospitalisation and death.
The third dose which has been rolled out with a high rate has had an impact on severe disease.
Due to waning immunity, it is being recommended that persons, aged 65 and over, take a second booster shot. This is based on data from Israel showing that people aged 60 to 100 who received a second booster, or fourth dose, of the BioNTech-Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine had a 78 per cent lower mortality rate from the disease than those immunised with only three doses at least four months earlier.
Hence, health authorities are extending the recommendation to all over the age of 65 years to take the second booster.
Why are we still seeing almost daily deaths from COVID? – Stephania Brincat
Even if vaccines continue to protect, some vaccinated people may still develop severe symptoms and be hospitalised, particularly those with underlying conditions.
An increase in infection rates might represent higher numbers, but they are only a very small proportion of the hundreds of million people who got vaccinated. Most of the hospitalisations and deaths in the EU are still occurring in unvaccinated people. COVID-19 vaccines are saving many millions of lives and are preventing many millions of hospitalisations due to severe COVID-19.