With the Covid-19 UK variant that has been identified pervading the UK and wreaking havoc on the country’s healthcare systems and economy, as well as some of the toughest lockdowns in the world, residing in the UK seems to be a daunting task from outside of the country. In most parts of the UK, people must stay at home and only go out for certain reasons, as schools, non-essential clothes shops, bars and restaurants all being closed, except for take-away in the latter case. The Malta Independent decided to speak with three Maltese people who were residing in the UK in order to get their perspective as to how they fared during these challenging times.

Dr Roselyn Borg Knight

My partner is English, we sold our house in the UK and we had to pack it up during the Christmas period. 

We live in Kent, it was in Tier 4 in terms of restrictions, which is one of the toughest. But because we have a lot of outside space, for me it wasn't very hard as I walked everyday. They encourage you to exercise, which is very important from a mental health perspective. So, it wasn't as tough as one might think.

The main difference between Malta and the UK is that you don't need to wear face masks when you are outdoors when in the UK, only when you are in shops.

Also, it depends on the place that you find yourself in. In Kent, we were very well served. They converted part of the village cathedral into a testing centre, so it is quite innovative. They have an amazing online system, they show you how to swab so they don't do the swabbing themselves, and within an hour you get the result.  

My sisters-in-law work in care homes so it was very tough for them. The toughest was and still is for my in-laws, because they are over 70 years old and its starting to feel very hard for them, as they don't have contact with everyone. We call them everyday via Facetime. But yes, for older people it is tough. In Malta we are still going out and meeting people... in England, in general, it's still quite strict. 

Because of the particular family situation I find myself in, the situation in England right now was a bit difficult. For me to get back to Malta my husband had to get a waiver.

I think that everyone has criticised the UK Government and I find it very uncomfortable that people who don't live in the country judge the situation here. When you are in a country with millions of people, you have to take into consideration that they are doing their best to roll out the vaccine as quickly as possible with the medical knowledge that they have.

The UK was one of the countries that identified the variant and it was at the forefront of distributing the vaccine; they should be proud of it. The British Prime Minister also greatly encouraged people there to work from home where they can, and I believe this should be implemented more across the world. Personally, as someone who's lived in the UK, I can't complain.

***********

 

Luana Bonello 

I went up to the UK in August of 2019 to do my Masters in English Literature at Oxford.

In the beginning, it was really scary as no one knew what was going on. I had gotten sick in March – getting a swab test was difficult as I was stuck in bed on my own without anyone available to drive me to the hospital. So, it was very bad until someone came with the ambulance to do a check up and get me to hospital. 

I had come down to Malta for the first lockdown, but I was in the UK during the second one. At the time we were only allowed out of the house to shop for essential items. Almost nothing was open except for pharmacies, not even take away or delivery places, which was a challenge for me as I work at a pub there. During the third lockdown, things changed a bit as some places were allowed to open for delivery, but there was still a lot of confusion on what the criteria were for a place to be allowed to open throughout these lockdowns. For example, I had a friend of mine working at a gardening store which doubled as a cafeteria. During the second lockdown the gardening section was considered as essential, so it was allowed to stay open, even the cafeteria section despite other cafes being forced to stay closed.

There was also a lack of enforcement, with rules changing all the time. You could see so many people outside even during a lockdown.

Unfortunately, there was a tendency to blame students for spikes in cases as we were being encouraged to go back to the UK to finish our studies and there was an influx of returning students. It was a horrible feeling being blamed for something we were told to do and there was a lot of conflicting information on whether we could do online lessons, so we had to go back. I'm not saying there weren't people breaking the rules, but the attacks were out of proportion. 

I then returned to Malta for the Christmas holidays and I have been waiting to go back since 28 December as I am still paying rent there, but my flights keep getting cancelled. Brexit has made travelling harder as well which is why I booked my flights before the start of the year. Thankfully, I have a Pre-settled status for the next 5 years so all I need to do is take a negative swab test certificate to be allowed back in. 

I do feel that in some cases, the UK handled the pandemic better than Malta, like going on lockdown when cases were on the rise. There is also a very efficient track and trace system through the National Health Services (NHS) application in the UK whilst in Malta, the Covid-19 Alert application is not really known or used by many. Nonetheless, Malta definitely did a better job with enforcing regulations. 

What I am hoping for from now on is for everyone to take the vaccine and that the UK makes the vaccine certificate mandatory for people to go in and out of the country.

***********

Stephen Galea

I am in my final year of studying Musical Theatre in Leicester.

To be honest, it didn’t really feel like there was a pandemic going on; everyone was still going around like normal – the only difference was that one had to wear a mask…and not even everyone was wearing a mask.

I had to go into quarantine twice – both times because someone in our bubble at school tested positive for Covid-19. The first time was very boring – it was during our mid-term break which basically meant I had nothing to do for the whole two weeks, to the point that I started to lose the concept of time. The second time was during the scholastic year, so we had lessons online in the morning and the rest of the day was just working on school-related things.

There were three people from my group in school and four people in my year who got it as well. It didn’t really hit them that badly, save for one person because she had asthma. In fact, after she was done with it and recovered, it still affected her and her breathing because of the asthma.

I was in the UK before the Brexit transition ended – I’ll really know whether it will affect my stay when I go back to the UK, but so far there hasn’t been much of an effect.

I’m hoping that when I get back, the situation gets better quicker. For what I’m studying, all theatres and bars have closed – so me and my friends are hoping that it gets back to normal so that the industry that we work in would be open and so that we would have jobs to go to. I hope that we won’t have to wait six months – or God knows how long – for the industry to get back on its feet so we can do what we love.