Health Minister Chris Fearne has said that he is yet to see the details of a government-organised Christmas event which was announced this morning, and hence cannot comment on it.

Fearne was asked by The Malta Independent about ‘Christmas in the City’ – an event launched by the government on Monday morning which attempts to attract people to Valletta over the Christmas period – and about concerns that its announcement had brought.

During the launch of the event, Valletta Cultural Agency Chairman Jason Micallef said that “Covid-19 will not kill Christmas”, and Tourism Minister Julia Farrugia Portelli said that her ministry in tandem with the MTA were always looking for ways to support the capital city and businesses within it.

The event launch however comes amidst appeals by health authorities not to congregate during Christmas in order to mitigate the spread of Covid-19.

Social media was awash with discontent over the organisation of the event, and the heads of the two major medical association – the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses and the Medical Association of Malta – both blasted the idea, with Paul Pace from the former saying that it is an “absolutely crazy” idea and Martin Balzan from the latter warning that this is a similar scenario to when mass events were allowed to take place last July.

Pace in fact questioned how neither Health Minister Fearne nor Public Health Superintendent Charmaine Gauci had shot the idea for the event down.

It turns out however that Fearne is yet to actually see the details pertaining to this event, even though the event is being organised by the government itself.

“I’m going to be honest, I haven’t seen the details yet, so I cannot comment”, Fearne said when asked by this newsroom about the event and the concerns it had brought.

Pushed further, Fearne reiterated that he had not seen the details on the event and that he would be reserving any comment until he does so.

This newsroom has also sent questions to the Health Ministry about the event.

Malta currently has 1,980 active cases of Covid-19 after 102 cases of the virus were reported on Monday.