Valletta Cultural Agency chairman Jason Micallef lamented on Wednesday that, while the Netherlands had allowed a mass gathering for the Eurovision Song Contest, Malta does not allow cultural activities with a minimal crowd.

We understand that Micallef feels frustrated that he cannot organise mass events in the Capital city due to Covid-19 restrictions, but perhaps he is forgetting that we are still in the middle of a serious health pandemic and holding such mass gatherings threatens to undo the good work being carried out by the health authorities.

Comparisons are odious, they say. Just because the Netherlands has allowed upwards of 3,000 people to gather inside a music arena in Rotterdam does not mean that they are doing the right thing.

The contest, in fact, has been hampered by a number of Covid cases – Iceland could not perform live at yesterday’s second semi-final and even Malta’s own Destiny had to miss the launch party due to an active case at the hotel she was staying at.

While precautions are being taken, and attendants must present a negative Covid test to be allowed in, there will always be risks and, presumably, not all participants, presenters, crew members and support staff have been fully vaccinated yet. One slip-up could put the entire thing under lockdown.

Of course, we have already experienced what mass events can do to anti-pandemic efforts.

Cases in Malta spiked last year after mass events were allowed in the summer. One particular pool party resulted in a multitude of infections. And we cannot allow that to happen again, despite the fact that Malta is one of the most vaccinated countries on earth.

Surely, no one wants a repeat of that situation, not even Micallef himself.

The health authorities have been very clear on the matter: mass events will be last to be allowed. The situation should not change just because the Eurovision organisers and the Netherlands government allowed the music event to take place.

Measures have to be relaxed in a gradual fashion, with the authorities waiting to see the impact of each step before moving on to the next. Restaurants will be allowed to remain open until midnight on Monday and gyms will reopen. We must see what the result of this will be, before removing more measures.

The same goes for the reopening of tourism. Not all tourists who come to Malta will be fully vaccinated and there might be an increase in cases, so we must do this step by step and only move forward when it is deemed safe to do so.

Eventually, we will get rid of those pesky facemasks and mass activities will be allowed again, but this must all be done in good time.

We cannot have a happy go lucky attitude of removing all measures now and then dealing with the consequences later. We did that already and the result was disastrous.