The Covid wage supplement needs to be extended beyond January.

Delaying the announcement will only create uncertainty for businesses. Minister Miriam Dalli was asked whether the government is ready to extend the scheme if the current spike persists. She said, "We will provide the necessary, targeted help where it is needed the most. That is what this government has always done, and we will continue to ensure that we are there for our workers and businesses."

This statement does not help. Businesses need to know, concretely, what support will be available.

The government had extended the supplement from December to January and the PN has been calling for it to be extended to at least March. In the current Covid situation, this would be the correct approach.

Too many people are currently in quarantine, meaning businesses would suffer, tourism could also be impacted.

The government took long to implement needed restrictions when the numbers began skyrocketing, likely as they did not want to impact the festive season. But this move has its consequences, as we are seeing now, with very high daily numbers of positive cases.

"We are seeing a number of businesses come to a standstill as consumers are being more cautious during this period. While businesses have been eagerly waiting for consumers, Malta's total trade was much less than expected," the PN said in a statement.

There were also calls for the government to reduce the quarantine period and, thankfully, it listened. People who test positive for Covid-19 but who have received the booster jab will be able to quarantine for 10 days instead of 14 as from next Monday, if no symptoms are present during the last three days of quarantine.

While this measure will help, it does not solve the situation completely. Primary contacts currently can continue to make use of the 'early release' system and leave quarantine after seven days, after obtaining a negative rapid test result. Despite this, the numbers in quarantine are high and we have so many people in quarantine because of the high number of cases we have, which has yet to be brought under control.

There was always going to be a spike around Christmas and New Year, it was inevitable, but certain measures could have been taken to minimise it.

This is where the health authorities made a mistake. While the number of patients in ITU is low, which is good, they did not seem to factor in the impact such high quarantine numbers was going to have, and thus took long to act in terms of measures.

The requirement for seated mass events should have been taken a lot earlier than it was, for instance. The requirement for a valid vaccine certificate to enter places of entertainment and restaurants etc should be implemented now, not on January 17 which is weeks away.

Updating the vaccine certificate come January is a good thing, given that the effective protection of vaccine decreases over time.

But the situation we are in is what it is, and as such the government should continue to support those businesses impacted the most through the wage supplement. Continuing this support is important if we want the wheels of our economy to keep on turning.