Charmaine Gauci takes a bow as COVID bulletins come to an end

The Superintendent of Public Health Charmaine Gauci has announced that she will no longer give her weekly COVID-19 briefings, as Malta's low positivity rate provides no need for them.

During a press conference on Friday, Gauci said that she will still be available for questions by journalists, while the public can make use of dedicated COVID-19 helplines for any queries. 

Gauci has been giving regular COVID-19 briefing since Malta registered its first case. She carried out daily briefings for almost three months to update the nation on the state of the coronavirus pandemic in Malta.

By mid-May last year, briefings were reduced to three times a week, and stopped completely in June when Malta lifted its state of emergency.

As Malta faced a surge of COVID-19 cases in Summer, Gauci returned to her briefings.

Gauci's daily COVID-19 bulletins at 12:30pm were followed closely, with a Broadcasting Authority survey last year showing that TV audiences in March shot up by 18.2% when compared to the previous survey in November.

With 73.2% of the population watching television, it was the highest registered audience numbers since the assessment was carried out. This represents an increase of 9.8% over March 2019.

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