Medical experts are being sidelined in order for the Prime Minister to make his own decisions, Nationalist party MPs Stephen Spiteri and Claudette Buttigieg said during a press conference on the pandemic situation in Malta.

In light of recent events, “where essential services such as contact tracing are failing, the people have to know the truth about the reality of the pandemic” Spiteri said, while adding that when Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne claimed that it was taking contact tracing teams a day to contact positive individuals, “it was an outright lie.”

“We have received reports that after 9 days, the contact tracing team still has not contacted certain individuals.” The Malta Independent on Sunday had reported an article highlighting the current contact tracing delays.

Spiteri said that “the opposition has full faith in the vaccination process and its roll out, however the vaccine is not the only tool we should use to combat Covid-19”.

Spiteri also said that the measures in force now are needed, but the opposition firmly believes that they were introduced too late. While the Opposition welcomed the new measures put in place last week, the government introduced the measures from a reactive point of view, the MPs said.

Certain comments by the Prime Minister late last year relating to the end of the pandemic may also be a contributing factor to the excessive Covid-19 cases which are being found daily, Spiteri said.

Spiteri also laid out the PN’s proposals to “get on top of the pandemic situation once again”.

One of the measures they proposed is to have proper screening in the airport and the ports. “This way we can track and control the importation of the virus”, Spiteri said.

Buttigieg emphasised that we have to be proactive in the way we make decisions about the pandemic.

“We are constantly appealing for a public health emergency to be declared in order for the decisions to be taken by professionals.”

Further measures the PN recommends include the setting up of a Covid-19 scientific advisory board which would include representatives of all medical professions in order to scientifically take the decisions needed. Another proposal was for family doctors to be able to administer the vaccine.