It seems like the authorities fumbled a bit with the UK vaccine certificate situation.

Malta had initially announced that it would not accept a digital certification, only a printed version of it. This then changed after a verifier app was created and, as from 1 July, Malta was to start accepting the digital certificate.

There is absolutely nothing wrong in the authorities taking the precautions needed, especially when it comes to verifying the certificates themselves. Indeed there are serious concerns about UK travellers due to the spread of the Delta variant in the UK, and the authorities must ensure, as much as possible, that this strain does not spread in Malta. So playing safe and being careful is not a bad thing.

But it is the way the situation was handled that left much to be desired. The British High Commission had quoted a decision by the Maltese government to only accept certificates sent by post by the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), and not digital certificates. Fearne later said that the NHS' digital certificate will be accepted on 2 July, but the ministry later backtracked saying that it would take an undisclosed number of days to fix technical problems and start accepting digital forms of the UK passes. On 1 July, the digital certificates then began being accepted.

First of all, reports made the rounds of people in the UK being turned away at airports not knowing that they needed the physical version of the certificate prior to the digital version being accepted, which would take days for the UK’s NHS to send. This likely put people off from the UK travelling to Malta.

It would have been far better had the situation been sorted out as soon as Malta was placed on the UK’s green list. A verifier app had to be created, but shouldn’t there have been some more foresight in this regard to have this in place?

Just imagine having a digital certificate thinking all was ok, only to be told that you cannot board as you don’t have the certificate in the right format? That would leave a seriously bitter taste in anyone’s mouth.

Indeed the effect of the situation was immediately seen. Air Malta said it had received a significant number of cancellations on the London Heathrow route when Malta was only accepting the Covid-19 physical vaccine certificate. The airline had cancelled its Manchester route prior to going on the UK’s green list and, until now, has not placed it back on. Given UK is a peak tourism market for Malta, this says a lot about how this situation affected things.

Now everything seems to have been sorted at least, and the country can move forward from here. But one thing remains for certain, the authorities must monitor the Covid situation closely, to ensure new variants do not spread in Malta.