The Malta Union of Teachers is calling for the government to take new measures to control the spread of coronavirus with a deadline up to Thursday, warning that some institutions may suffer a teacher shortage due to the virus.

On Monday, the teacher’s union highlighted their concern regarding the increase in new COVID-19 cases. “The number of positive cases in our country is large while this, together with the rate of transmission in the community, will have an impact on schools. As expected there have already been positive cases in schools.”

The union said that within a few days some schools may not have enough teachers because they would be sick or in quarantine.

Earlier on Monday, Health Minister Chris Fearne told this newsroom that there is no evidence that would link to the spike in registered new COVID-19 cases related to the reopening of schools. “So far it did not result that we had a big amount of cases in the community because we opened schools.”

The union insisted that it was the government’s duty to ensure that schools had the necessary health and safety precautions in place. The reopening of schools requires restraint and enforcement measures, and that the protocols schools and teachers are following would count for nothing unless there were sufficient measures and strict enforcement outside of school grounds.

“It is clear that measures such as social distancing are not being sufficiently enforced everywhere, and other measures are too weak. In many cases government officials were also giving conflicting signals.”

The union is calling on the government to introduce new measures to stop the spread of the virus and improve strict enforcement by Thursday 15 October.

It also gave notice that it would issue directives to safeguard the safety of educators if this is not the case.