The average age at death for COVID-19 victims is now the youngest ever, at 68.3 years, amid a substantial number of patients being treated in intensive care, Charmaine Gauci has revealed.
In her weekly update on the virus in Malta, the superintendent of public health said authorities expected the death rate to rise following record numbers of cases.
On Friday, there were five more deaths, with the victims aged 38 to 85 years old. Three were patients at Mater Dei while two died in their homes. Once you have a spike in numbers, you expect the number of deaths, and hospitalisations to occur, she said.
The years 1975-1992 were a period of conflict and transition all over the world, as well as in Malta. Alfred Sant’s memoirs
Confessions of a Maltese European, which are being published this spring by SKS provides a personal chronicle of his experiences during those years. They start with his years in Boston, at a time when US society was absorbing the shock of the resignation in disgrace of President Richard Nixon.
Sant’s story then shifts to Malta. It covers the years leading to the successful finale of the Mintoff administration’s effort to eliminate once and for all the island’s reliance on the military base operated from it by the British. Meanwhile, political conflict picked up and remained a feature of the Malta scene for long years to come. In 1977, Karen Grech was killed by a bomb sent to her father’s house; in 1986, Raymond Caruana was shot dead at the PN’s club in Gudja.
Former health minister Konrad Mizzi refuses to answer questions when he is summoned as a witness in the court case initiated by Nationalist MP Adrian Delia to have the hospitals concession contract with Vitals rescinded
Superintendent of Public Health Charmaine Gauci has warned the public against using dangerous at-home COVID-19 tests currently on the market.
During her weekly briefing on the coronavirus situation, Gauci said people may not be accurately testing themselves and should have tests carried out by healthcare professionals. These tests can be dangerous as people might not be testing themselves properly. We are lucky we have so many testing centres for free, she said, encouraging people to book tests online or through dialling 111. We need to remember that to do a test to see if you are positive or not you have to be swabbed. Technically this means someone else has to take this test for you, who knows how to do it properly, because if you do not do this properly you will not take a proper sample.