The Malta Entertainment Industry and Arts Association (MEIA), representing more than 1,700 people working in the Arts and Entertainment, has called on the authorities to take action and immediately publish a Covid exit plan, to avoid further devastation caused by the pandemic.

In a statement, MEIA expressed concerned that the current situation is often leading to crisis management, leading to conflicting messages by different public entities and economic hardship to the industry.

"Industry professionals in the arts and entertainment sectors are unable to plan ahead and address the challenges of the current situation, which will probably take longer than anticipated with long-term effects on all sectors."

MEIA is calling for a 12-month managed exit plan starting from March 2021, identifying the different scenarios and the respective mitigation measures required for each scenario according to the protocols established by the Health department.

"The one-year exit plan needs to identify ways in which the arts and entertainment industries can operate with sufficient information to design and plan events for the different measures. Other countries have successfully introduced measures that allowed the arts and entertainment industries to phase-in different event planning measures, some also leading to mass gathering events without registering any Covid-19 infections," the statement claimed.

The president of MEIA added that "We are well aware that mass gatherings with thousands of people might not be realistic for this summer. We can still hopefully look at small scale options, may it be through certification of vaccinations, sustainable models with different mitigation measures or strict border controls due to the new variants"

MEIA said that the fast-changing conditions of the pandemic requires significant flexibility to ensure that health remains a priority. "However, we firmly believe that scenario building can be simulated and communicated effectively to reassure arts and entertainment professionals that our sectors can restart through such exit plan built on existing data, research and industry expertise."