Malta's current plan is to keep vaccinating and reach herd immunity in order for the country to become a viable tourism destination option, the minister responsible for the sector Clayton Bartolo told The Malta Independent.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that in June, all mitigation measures will be dropped in the UK. Considering that a large number of tourists who visit Malta come from the UK, this newsroom asked Bartolo if there are any concerns that Malta would be put on the red list due to the current Covid-19 numbers, or concerns about travel to the country being banned altogether by the UK.

Bartolo said: "We are working so that, as a country, we can keep moving forward with the vaccination campaign, in order for us to achieve herd immunity. As we push towards herd immunity, we will propose our plans for the coming months. In order for us to be able to enact our plans, we will need everyone's cooperation, and everyone has to follow the restrictions and protocols which have been imposed by the government. We are implementing these restrictions in order to achieve a proper tourism plan for the summer months."

The plan, for now, is to keep vaccinating and make Malta a viable option once herd immunity is reached, he said.

The tourism minister was questioned by this newsroom while he paid a visit to the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA). During the month of February the MTA carried out various inspections across multiple restaurant establishments in Malta and Gozo.

During this period, over 10,500 inspections were carried out, Bartolo confirmed. Of these, 20 establishments were found in breach of Covid-19 mitigation measures and another 22 were found in breach of the 11 p.m closing time regulation (a restrictive measure that was put in place for a time within that month).

Restaurants are currently all closed due to new measures which were introduced last week, allowing them only to open for take-aways.