Lobby group Restart has launched a petition to "restart our social and cultural life safely."
On Friday, the government announced that seated social and cultural events will be allowed to take place again as from the 5 July, with a capping of 100 people. This, however, was seen as a bit of a disappointing announcement by those in the entertainment industry.
In Facebook post, Restart said that Malta has reached herd immunity, that there are no patients in ICU, that there are only 64 active cases and that the infection rate is 0.2% in vaccinated people. "Yet we've now been handed an insult of a recovery plan. Seated events are the final straw, our industry cannot take this," Restart said.
It launched a petition, stating that "The Entertainment Industry remains the only industry not allowed to operate by the local Public Health Authorities. We have strictly adhered to the regulations since the very beginning of this pandemic in March 2020. While these were reasonable and justified then, the situation now is very different."
"Thousands of highly-skilled workers and their families have been impacted. More than one year of no paychecks, severely reduced revenues and monthly wages, not to mention the severe mental health challenges experienced by out-of-work artists, audiovisual experts, event management companies, cleaning professionals, and many others. We are calling on the Public Health Authorities and the Government to explore all possibilities for the safe and successful reopening of the Entertainment Industry, just as it did with all other sectors of the economy."
The petition asks Parliament to issue a "timeline of restrictions, with capacity gradually eased over several weeks. We suggest that these should start being put in place as from 1st July 2021; a date to be acknowledged as from now in order to plan accordingly."
It states: "We are open to discuss methods of entry to events with the Health Authorities such as by only accepting fully-vaccinated customers to events, and thus we will also be happy to support the health authorities in their vaccination campaign, especially now that vaccinations for the 16-30 age brackets have commenced." It also adds that "Events will be gated, and thus there will be control on all attending. This will allow all organisers and venues to verify if attendees are fully vaccinated, and also gather the details of attendees in case of future communication if required. Any data gathering will be done in accordance to GDPR rules."
Restart weren't the only ones with issues over the situation. The Malta Entertainment Industry and Arts Association (MEIA) has also made its concerns known.
In a Facebook post, MEIA said: "Following the joint press conference from the Ministry of Health & Ministry of Culture , MEIA would like to outline that there seems to be an unfortunate disregard towards the livelihood of professionals, where such measures do not make it feasible or even practical, unless the event is subsidised by government. No communication or discussions continued with MEIA after our safe & reasonable proposals were submitted."
"Furthermore, it is discriminatory for our industry when all other sectors are allowed to operate without such bold measures whilst tourists are at least given a choice to show a negative test in the absence of a certificate of vaccination. Measures submitted by MEIA included bold recommendations to avoid random mass gatherings which unfortunately were not taken into consideration either. Our industry which generates 7.9% to GVA is not being given the respect it deserves & MEIA will take all the necessary action to protect the interests of its members."
Photo: Erik Mclean/Unsplash