Masks will no longer be mandatory anywhere from May 2 except on flights, hospitals and in care homes, health minister Chris Fearne announced as he lifted most remaining COVID-19 measures.

There will also be no need to present a Passenger Locator Form when travelling to Malta while weddings and all other social activities can resume as normal.

And anyone who lives with a COVID-19 patient will no longer be required to quarantine, unless they are also showing symptoms of the virus.

"We want to move towards normality, with responsibility," Fearne told a news conference on Friday alongside Superintendent of Public Health Charmaine Gauci.

Travel rules stay

While the Passenger Locator Form will no longer be needed, most travel rules remain in place. Anyone arriving in Malta will still need to present either a vaccine certificate, negative PCR test or recovery certificate for entry.

The red and dark red travel lists will also remain in place.

Fearne pointed to persistently low numbers in Mater Dei hospital's intensive care unit as a reason for lifting the measures. Of the 88 people in hospital with COVID-19, a total of 39 are being treated for the virus, two of whom are in intensive care.

"This number has been like this for months, even when the numbers in the community went up," Fearne said. "The vaccine is effective when it comes to complications because even when the number of new cases spiked, the cases in ITU stayed low."

"The fact we have all this immunity and even despite the variants and other increases we didn't see the spike in hospital cases, our exit roadmap, which we introduced months ago, can continue," he said. "We are nearing the time when we will have all measures removed."