The Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) has said that it is paying the accommodation bill for a French student who was transferred to a hotel for quarantine.

A French student had said that she had been transferred to a 5-star hotel after testing positive for Covid-19 and was told that she has to pay €100 a night for the accommodation. The young woman had said that she arrived in Malta in January as an Erasmus student. She was supposed to return to France on 10 July but she tested positive for Covid-19 on 6 July.

In a statement, the MTA said that upon further confirmation with the hotel itself, "the student in question has in fact not been billed by the hotel, and she is only paying for food and beverage, as it is always the case in such cases. As a matter of fact, The MTA is covering the accommodation expenses in the quarantine hotel for those who have followed all the procedures to enter Malta. This is also done in accordance with the Legal Notice which was published, which clearly states that only those that have entered Malta with the incorrect procedure are placed in preventive quarantine, which they have to pay for themselves."