Last week, The Malta Independent on Sunday revealed that Covid-19 contact tracing was, give or take, nine days behind.

This information came from people working in contact tracing and case management, who explained that Covid-19 case management and contact tracing units are "drained and tired".

In addition, several people who tested positive have told this newsroom that it took days for the contact tracing team to call them after they received their positive test result.

Yet, somehow, this contrasts heavily with the government's message. Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne told Parliament last week that it took 24 hours for case management to contact positive Covid cases, and up to 4 days to reach the contacts of the positive case.

"When Deputy Minister Fearne said that it takes 24 hours to get in contact with positive cases, I think he was referring to the call the positive cases receive from a doctor telling them that they are positive and need to stay inside. This typically takes place within the first 24-48 hours of the test coming out positive. There are times when our team will call before the doctor, but this is rare. Right now, we are at our worst, unfortunately," one of the workers said.

Regardless however, the government should not be trying to sugarcoat the situation as it is.

From what the workers said it is clear that more human resources are needed as the workload is immense. Thankfully, this newsroom understands that more staff are being allocated. In addition, it is also clear that there are people who are not cooperating. not picking up their phones after finding out they are positive, and are making the backlog worse and creating problems. The workers also stressed the need for people to act maturely and responsibly. "Contact tracing is spread thin. It's not because the system isn't working. It's because the people out there are not taking care of others. It's the immaturity that is making the cases increase," one worker said.

We need to work with the authorities and not create more obstacles for them.

This newsroom also ran an exercise last week calling up the Covid-19 vaccine helpline – 145. It was, during the day in which this newsroom called several times, completely unreachable.

How is that acceptable? Especially now when the Covid-19 crisis is at its peak in the country?

The authorities need to get on top of the situation, and fast, as from the outside in, it looks as though they have dropped the ball. And this is not the fault of the workers in those teams who are clearly overworked as it is.

The recently announced measures are most welcome at this particular time. The health authorities could not keep up with the cases, and thus drastic measures were needed. It is up to us to ensure that these measures are followed, and that we do not risk worsening the situation. Selfishness will cost lives, plain and simple.

The government needs to be calm, clear, transparent and truthful about the situation. It needs to be strict with enforcement and fines. It must not send messages which could result in people thinking the virus has passed or that the situation is not serious. It also needs to continuing to increase the human resources to the teams which are in contact with the public. Again, while this seems to be happening, it needs to happen faster and there must be a plan in place to always have the staff required to avoid backlogs in contact tracing. If it takes days for contact tracing to contact a positive patient to get an understanding of who he or she was in contact with, and longer to contact the people that patient lists for them, then the likelihood is that the virus will continue to spread like wildfire.