A scientific analysis by statistician Dr Vincent Marmara’s of the Coronavirus cases in the context of the measures taken by the Health Authorities gives an encouraging picture as the rate of person-to-person infections has continued to decline. But Dr Vincent Marmara has warned against easing the measures as long as there are still patients infected with the virus.

Mathematical calculations by statistician Dr Vincent Marmara show that within six weeks of the start of the Coronavirus outbreak in Malta, the transmission of the virus from one person to another has greatly decreased.

In fact the current reproduction ratio is 1.1.

Dr Marmara, who specializes in epidemics and infections from a statistical point of view, explained how the rate of person-to-person infections has decreased day by day since March 7 after we had the first case.

” In the beginning we had the rate that we talked about where two people were transmitting this infection to five other people. It has started to decrease and has reached a stable level where two people are transmitting this infection to three other people and now we have a rate of 1 :1 transmission.”

The statistician said that although the rate of infections has dropped, restrictions remain crucial in curbing the pandemic.

” If we remove all the measures at once when there are still cases then one risks increasing this reproduction ratio and increasing the cases again. But if the measures are gradually reduced when there are still cases in the community, in that case we must follow the reproduction ratio consistently to ensure that the ratio is not increasing sharply. and so eventually we will have the second wave as is happening in other countries. ”

Dr Marmara explained that the interpretation of the emerging cases must also take into account particular factors to get a full picture of the situation.

” If the cases increase due to a particular cluster, for example because to Open Centres then there one has to be careful about how to analyze the data. Because if you have a healthy spread there then the number of cases will increase and this will also affect the rising reproduction ratio. ”

Dr Marmara said that in the sixth week of the outbreak 72 new cases were reported in Malta – a significant decrease from the previous week when there were 148 cases. He noted that cases in the sixth week were at the same levels as the third and fourth weeks.

Report: Melvic Zammit, Date: April 19, 2020