In order to get the spread of the coronavirus under control, many countries are striving for herd immunity.
A first EU country has now achieved this goal.
Valetta - an immunity of around 80 percent of the population - this is the target that Lothar Wieler, President of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), recently mentioned repeatedly.
"Then we will have the pandemic under control," he said at a federal press conference on the corona situation in early May.
With the progress of the corona vaccinations, this value could theoretically be reached in Germany this year.
A first EU country has already achieved herd immunity.
At least that is what the Minister of Health announced on Monday (May 24th).
Corona: Malta is the first EU country to declare herd immunity achieved
According to its Health Minister Chris Fearne, Malta was the first EU country to vaccinate 70 percent of its adult population with at least one dose against the coronavirus.
At a press conference on Monday he therefore announced: "We have achieved herd immunity today."
According to data from the Ministry of Health, as of Sunday (May 23), around 475,000 corona vaccine doses have been administered in Malta so far.
In the country with around 500,000 inhabitants, a total of more than 180,000 people have already received full vaccination protection.
According to Fearne, just under 42 percent of people over the age of 16 are vaccinated.
Corona in Malta: Numbers are falling sharply - loosening of the mask requirement promised
The number of new corona infections has fallen sharply in Malta in the past few months.
According to the Ministry of Health's corona dashboard, only two new corona cases were reported on Monday (May 24).
In Malta, any citizen over the age of 16 can currently get a corona vaccination.
According to Fearne, 95 percent of the over 60-year-olds at risk are already vaccinated.
If the trend continues and the corona numbers in Malta remain low, the government also wants to relax the rules for wearing mouth and nose covers from July 1, according to the Minister of Health.
People who have received both vaccine doses should then be exempted from the mask requirement if, for example, they are alone outside.
On beaches, the mask requirement should be dropped from June 1st.
In Germany, the 80 percent immunity in the population, which RKI President Wieler names as a target, is still a bit far away. However, the trend is also positive in this country: the number of infections is falling, the corona vaccinations are making progress. According to the RKI's vaccination dashboard, almost 40 percent of the population has now received at least one initial vaccination. Almost 14 percent of people in Germany are fully vaccinated.
(ph / dpa)
