Another week of double-digit virus cases. Many businesses are now suffering the brunt of consumer uncertainty to varying degrees, from those usually servicing the local population to those depending on the constant influx of visiting tourists.
The Covid-19 impact goes well beyond the financial. Another victim was laid to rest last week. The tenth life snatched from loving families. My thoughts are with those families and all of those fighting the virus as patients and medical personnel in charge.
Adding to the direct pain of disease, there is a mountain-load of indirect pain – a meta-physical one – which the pandemic is inflicting on our families, as well-knit as they tend to be. Gone are the big lunches at grandma’s or grandpa’s home. Gone are the relaxing summer evening chats rife with gossip on the iconic foldable chairs in front of our homes in most of our villages. Gone are the invitations for a sip of cherry brandy or vermouth by distant aunts celebrating the village feasts, now passing by in relative silence.
No government could have avoided what started from Wuhan. The Prime Minister was right to point that out in his interview on Sunday with Chris Peregin. That is, however, just about the only thing I could agree with him about in that interview. To begin with, he clearly had a starting objective, shoving responsibility downwards. The PM was very ready to indicate that he never said the war had been won, ‘Chris Fearne said that. Not me’ he was quick to retort at the obvious question on mishandling. All decisions ‘bear the stamp’ of Health Minister Fearne and Health Superintendent Gauci, Abela insisted in a clear effort to make sure to say that as though it was at the top of his interview checklist.
This points to an evident disharmony afflicting the Government’s Covid-19 response. Such disharmony is possibly behind its biggest blunder so far, that of provoking useless tension with the health professionals. The Sunday papers report once again cases of frontliners telling a story of neglect by the authorities. A stark contrast to Government’s approach to party organisers, which were reimbursed failed party marketing expenses and the offenders of quarantine rules enjoying amnesties while we are still in the midst of it all. For one nurse or doctor that speaks, there are a hundred eager to speak but will not. Nevertheless, they do share their frustration in private, fuming at the dangerous inroads by the Prime Minister into epidemiology.
On Sunday Abela in fact repeated for the umpteenth time that the Covid-19 virus in Malta is mild. How does he back that assertion? Authorities the world over have been cautioning against misinformation about the virus and here we have our Prime Minister developing theories of some Maltese mild Covid-19 strain. No word in this sense from the experts themselves.
Health workers like many others are also worried when analysing the daily spread reports. I have complete trust in the team led by Superintendent Gauci and know for a fact that the group of professionals in charge of contact tracing and case handling are to be credited in most part for holding the virus at bay in the first phase. That grasp on the virus is, however, now becoming more and more difficult as the number of cases multiply and the subject population is more diverse and mobile due to tourism, vouchers and crisp open nightclubs.
The dynamic nature of movements in the Maltese Summer make it very hard to track and trace virus cases. This is clearly a setting calling for the deployment of digital contact tracing applications en masse. Back in April, the European Commission in fact adopted a protocol on the deployment of such applications allowing interested Member States to use them safely within data protection rules. I personally called for their consideration in this same column in May. Taking one day from last week as an example, out of 55 virus cases detected 30 could not be tracked down to a known source. Very clearly then, with a contagion rate of close to 3, we may be looking at 90 other cases in free range, undetected. Those 90 risks of infection could have been reduced dramatically with a partial uptake of digital contact tracing applications, indicating movements of infected cases and contact details to alert and swab the contacts thereof.
PM Abela like his government should move on from its self-congratulatory tone and learn from its mistakes. This is no time for the ‘u iva mhux xorta’ (anything goes) which may have made it so far. The blunder with reopening a tourist season betting all our odds on the younger tourist (cause we did that very well in 2019) is clearly a lesson that these times call for more lateral thinking.
All is not lost for Abela if he can do the hardest thing – step aside and leave it to the professionals. Once we manage to bring the effects of Government’s bad decisions under control and return to small virus numbers we will need to prepare for the mammoth challenge of deploying the vaccine at the earliest, where it is most needed first.
International media reports this week say that Pfizer should have a vaccine ready for regulatory approval in the USA by October and use by November. On this side of the Atlantic, last week the European Commission secured a first pre-purchase agreement with AstraZeneca which has a vaccine in phase 3 clinical trials.
Malta must take full part in this process. It is time for our people to once again be protagonists of European solutions. European Commissioner Kyriakides stated that 300 million doses of vaccine will be secured, hence covering roughly half of the EU population and arriving in gradual shipments. If, as we all hope, we come to that phase of Covid-19 by autumn, we need to propose an expedient way for the vaccine to reach our communities from Qala to Qrendi and the most in need first. I am thinking of the many immuno-compromised amongst us, those on cancer treatment or who went through transplant operations, not to mention the thousands of grandparents who are counting the days to see this over. Let us learn from our mistakes and not take this lightly anymore. Every day we advance closer to getting rid of this virus is a day gained for the well-being of our communities.
[email protected]