As the active cases of Covid-19 touch the 8,000 mark with another record of 1,300 cases yesterday, Malta is living through possibly the hardest patch of our battle against Covid-19. The anxiety and the suffering of the pandemic can be felt on multiple levels, from the loss of loved ones to the additional loneliness imposed on our elderly, to the loss of income and revised business prospects for workers and entrepreneurs.

All around us, from the European continent to the United States, governments are trying to refine the balance between public health, personal rights and a working economy by ensuring rapid testing and adapting periods of quarantine to a more realistic setting of living with this hated virus for a longer stretch. While Malta has a 14-day quarantine for instance, most of our European counterparts foresee a regime whereby quarantine is lifted earlier for vaccinated people or after a negative swab test in which case quarantine is lifted after 5 days.  

I am certainly no health expert and would hence merely follow the rules as they should be devised, following scientific advise, however, judging by the practice in many other countries I believe that it is worth considering a revision of our quarantine rules to serve society better while keeping a high level of caution on public health.

That discussion is also to be put in the context of less-than-optimal handling by government right now when it comes to testing centres, with reported cases of up to 4 week delays, and the availability of self-testing kits which seems to be delayed as well.

Having spoken to a few affected individuals over the past days, it would seem that Malta has indeed one of the most rigid quarantine regimes compounded by particularly rigid practices which transfer responsibility for government's lack of efficiency to the individual concerned. One anomaly I heard about is that, while in other countries you are instructed to self-isolate from the day of the first symptoms of the virus, in Malta it is generally 14 days from the day you get the call from the relevant authorities. One person I spoke to running a small business told the story of how she self-isolated at home following a contact with a positive case to be then called by the authorities after 10 days with an instruction to be on quarantine from that day, making the period of that particular quarantine effectively 24 days.

Waiting weeks for a swab test when we are at this peak definitely does not help to contain the numbers. What are we meant to do during the weeks of interval awaiting the swab? Are we meant to self-isolate for a month? Are we meant to carry the burden of Government's inefficiency and lack of planning foresight?

I believe that everyone under the sun is to be responsible for his/her own actions. Government is no exception. The least Government should do is to at least stand ready to make up for its inefficiencies. If it takes 10 days for someone to be called after a high-risk contact, then we should afford the person the benefit of good faith and start quarantine from the incident rather than from the call. Equally, if it takes three or four weeks to make a swab test, then Government should simply admit its failures and open up to reimbursing swab test fees for private testing, unless and until it manages to guarantee a same week test.

We are living hard times for everyone, not least for those in the decision making seat. After two years in the pandemic however we expect the handling to be infused with the wisdom of lessons learnt.

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