Malta’s 14-day COVID case rate has dropped for the sixth consecutive week, a weekly review of data compiled by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has shown. 

According to the data, covering the week ending May 22, Malta’s 14-day case rate stood at 231.5 per 100,000 people. The review also shows that in the week under review, the health authorities detected 537 new COVID-19. 

This puts the country well below the EU average of 515 per 100,000 people.

The health authorities stopped publishing their daily Facebook infographic detailing the number of new cases in March. They still make the data available on the online data repository GitHub. 

The ECDC data also shows that in the week under review there were 4.1 patients admitted to Mater Dei for every 100,000 people.

Health Minister Chris Fearne said on Thursday that the number of patients in hospital has remained under control and there have also been days when there were no COVID-19 patients in intensive care. 

Meanwhile, a look at the situation for the different age groups shows that the authorities detected the most cases among those aged 25 and 49, with 220 people being infected in last week. 

There were 98 cases among those aged 50 to 64 and a further 100 cases among those between 65 and 79. 

Cases among young people aged between 15 and 24 have dropped significantly, with only 40 cases being detected while there were 53 cases among children aged 15 and under. 

The lowest number of cases was detected among those aged over 80, with only 26 patients testing positive for the virus. 

According to Fearne, some 30,000 people over 65 have so far been administered the second booster dose. 

The figures reported to the ECDC do not include results from self-testing kits which became legal in April.