I live in a very old house and these past days especially I have found myself staring at the ceiling slabs (xorok) and the walls and thinking about the people who so many years ago hand-carved them.

The names of these persons and those who lived here have long since been forgotten but the house remained through the incursions by the invading Turks, the 1693 earthquake, through no less than three spreads of the plague and even through World War II when houses on either side of it were destroyed.

A short way up my street there is a broken arch which is all that remains of a house where there was a young mother with her baby and three other children, all killed when their house was attacked in the war.

Without realising it, we are surrounded by the hard work of others and by slight reminders of those whose memories have faded away.

If we stop and think, those who lived before us had greater dangers to face and less means to endure them. Think of invasions, think of the plague, think of war. Compared to their suffering, the lockdown we now have, the social distancing are not comparable, though for us they were unexpected.

Over the past days we have seen how the fear of Coronavirus has given way in many people’s minds to concern or even panic about the security of their jobs in the wake of the massive disruption caused by the virus.

This is quite understandable. For one thing, we may have heard a lot about Coronavirus but so far no death has been registered. We may have seen terrible scenes from abroad but so far these social distancing directives are only mildly disturbing.

On the other hand, if people's jobs are imperilled and massive waves of lay-offs are envisaged, that is more than adequate reason to worry and even to panic.

We are finding out that no jobs are equal – some, especially in the public service, will sail on without problem but others in the private sector will not be so lucky, especially in jobs without security of tenure and the vast number of part-time jobs where most of the recently-created jobs are.

The government on Tuesday announced its third package after consultations with the constituted bodies. Numbers, huge numbers, billions of euros were mentioned and the constituted bodies came out with fulsome praise.

But even they admitted that large numbers of people will not benefit from this largesse. Many people such as the part-timers, the casual workers may not benefit.

The people of Malta know what is happening outside our borders. They have read what other governments have given their citizens in this time of crisis and they can compare notes.

On the one hand my perception is that the help being given by some foreign governments such as the UK is better than what has been offered here. On the other hand, the Maltese economy is far more dependent on tourism than in other countries and our tourism died a sudden death when the airport was closed.

The coming months will be very hard for those who have lost earnings especially those who have nothing much to fall back upon. I am rather surprised to note that neither the government nor the Church nor the many NGOs have come up with food banks though I admit that the virus restrictions are no help at all.

Still, as was pointed out on TVM, a lot of agricultural produce is going to waste at the Pitkalija because the hotels have closed down.

The coming two/three weeks are going to be very tough as these may be the peak of the curve. We may today be justifiably concerned about jobs and job-security but as the curve rises we will be far more concerned about our lives and of those around us.

Within that worry there is another lurking. Will our health system cope? We have seen the advanced system of Lombardy brought to its knees, and that of Spain. For all the prefab hospitals and wards that the Maltese health authorities are rushing to set up, the number of intensive therapy beds is still limited as are the number of respirators we have.

More have been ordered but there's war in procurement out there. Our only hope is that the curve does not rise above what we can have. Otherwise, the predicament is too terrible to consider.

Stay in all of you and stay safe.

 

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