This entire handling of the Covid pandemic needs to be depoliticised and handled by the experts. Let’s remove all propaganda and responsibly agree on the best way forward. Surely the Prime Minister can even take the Leader of the Opposition in his confidence, and hopefully arrive at a bi-partisan decision.
The science points unequivocally to a national lockdown. Hopefully this can be a short circuit-breaker lockdown of at least two weeks.
Way back at the start of the year, the UK had over 60,000 new cases each day (equivalent to 400 cases per day, when adjusted to Malta’s population size). The figure has dropped to a tenth of this in just two months, as a result of two measures: a national lockdown and an aggressive vaccine roll-out. Malta has unfortunately moved in the opposite direction.
It’s futile, indeed childish, for the PM to say that he has nothing to apologise for. The reality is that we currently have one of the highest rates of new cases anywhere in the world. This calls for serious measures, far more than simply shutting down restaurants for 5 weeks.
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The only defence for this lax approach is to save the economy. But ironically, it’s going to have a diametrically opposite effect: come summer, as tourist flock to other Mediterranean destinations like Greece and Cyprus, Malta will still be grappling with over 100 new cases per day, far worse than last summer, with almost no tourists whatsoever.
We need a serious approached based on the science. This entails:
--- A rapid vaccine roll-out that is transparent, without bumping people up the queue for often flimsy reasons. We expect to be told exactly how many vaccines are available in the country on a daily basis.
--- Having a circuit-breaker lockdown of at least 2 weeks. This will cut the spread from its current exponential growth and, together with the vaccine roll-out, will enable us to bring back the virus under control.
--- Giving full and unfettered authority to the Superintendent of Public Health. We cannot help suspecting that both she and her Minister have been repeatedly over-ruled.
We aren’t going to say that X and Y should resign, or that they were reckless in promising that we won the war, or that normality is around the corner. This has ceased to impress anyone. Let’s instead pull together and overcome this crisis maturely. No one is blaming the PM for the advent of this virus. The economic measures are broadly fine. But the PM needs to recognize that his over-optimism is misplaced and has bordered on the populist. Having said this, it isn’t too late to put this right. If we act now, we can salvage our Summer and look forward to a sense of normality by the Autumn. No one expects miracles.
So, Prime Minister, please stop this vicious cycle of over-promising and under achieving. We’d sooner listen to the projections of the experts, and certainly to their advice. Your country will thank you if you take a back seat and let the technocrats take charge. Let’s get serious.