Medical associations condemn legal ‘stunt’ by sceptics

Specialist associations and colleges of Malta strongly condemn the judicial protest instituted by a group of “highly irresponsible persons” who have put forward a hotch-potch of senseless allegations that completely lack scientific basis and which are very dangerous in a climate that is already fraught with mixed messages.

The organisations were referring to a protest filed by Covid-19 sceptics who accused the health authorities of creating national panic and calling for the removal of the order to wear face masks in public.

Every single assertion made in the protest, the organisations said, has been debunked by irrefutable scientific evidence. The mortality of Covid-19 is, at least, ten times that of seasonal influenza. The protection afforded by the wearing masks in closed spaces as well as the importance of social distancing continues to be highlighted in ever increasing publications.

As experts in the field of testing, the Pathologists want to reassure everyone that the PCR test for Covid-19 is extremely sensitive and specific and is the gold standard of testing. To claim that this test has a false positivity rate of 90% is simply beyond rational comprehension. And if this group wants ‘clear and realistic reason(s) for the cause of deaths of people who succumbed to Covid-19’s effects’, they only need to talk to our colleagues in intensive care and infectious diseases, who care for these sick patients on a daily basis and will tell them very clearly whether Covid-19 is a hoax or not.

Rather than “the Maltese public… being given a picture of what appears ‘graver than it really is’”, the organisations reiterates that the measures currently in place are not enough to bring down the numbers of infections, hospital admissions and deaths. The organisations are not happy with the “stable” numbers of daily cases because these numbers are still too high. Mater Dei Hospital is struggling to cope with seriously ill Covid-19 patients and this is having a negative effect on the wellbeing of the entire population as many services have had to be curtailed.

It is crucial at this junction that everybody works together to ensure that our control of this virus is improved to avoid more negative effects on our health and the economy. At a time when the availability of a vaccine is on the horizon, the last thing we need are frivolous and ludicrous stunts, the organisations said.

The statement was signed by: Malta College of Pathologists, Malta College of Family Doctors, Malta College of Gynaecologists, Malta Association of Public Health Medicine , Malta Association of Surgeons, Malta Association of Ophthalmologists, Malta Association of Radiologists and Nuclear Medicine, Malta Association of Dermatology and Venereology, Maltese Cardiac Society, Association of Anaesthetists of Malta, Association of Emergency Physicians of Malta, the Association of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgeons and the Geriatric Medicine Society.