Re-think what tourists to attract
After weeks of barely any Covid-19 cases, the pandemic has now reared its head on Maltese shores once again.
Fifty-five new cases reported on Thursday and 96 reported on Friday have seen the number of active cases shoot up to 252.
In writing about this, we must note that the cloud does have a silver lining: the vast majority – some 90% – of the cases are people who have not been vaccinated yet.
In that sense, at least this is clear proof that the vaccine – contrary to what many social media ‘experts’ (who generally use fake profiles to bleat their diatribes in many a comment board) say – is effective.
Indeed, as confirmed by Dr Chris Fearne and Prof Charmaine Gauci in yesterday’s press conference, the vast majority of the new cases are unvaccinated foreign language students, many of whom have been staying at the same hotel and are hence in the same cluster.
Once again, we have seen that the movement of people from abroad has caused the virus to spike – something which comes to the detriment of locals who are not vaccinated yet, to local businesses who now face the uncertainty of what an increase in cases could do to their prospects of remaining open, and to health care staff who once again risk coming under pressure from the spike in virus cases.
What leaves an especially sour taste is that the Tourism Ministry had launched a scheme to pay foreign language students up to €300 to come to Malta – a state-incentivised way of importing the virus, as it turns out.
The Medical Association of Malta rightly said on Friday that the Tourism Ministry had been guilty of “amateurism” – saying that with the increase in case numbers, Malta risks being removed from green travel lists around Europe, hence once again throwing the whole of the touristic industry into disarray.
We do wonder: would it not have been better to maintain tourism for vaccinated individuals only, in the same way as has been done for people coming from the United Kingdom?
What the MAM also makes mention of is that mass events cannot continue to take place – this is not necessarily an agreeable point.
Various trials across Europe have taken place showing that mass events can be held safely. The overwhelming scientific proof that the vaccine is in fact working and the vaccine certificate system now being in place can be utilised to keep such events and gatherings safe from being a source of transmission from the virus.
This most recent spike in case numbers requires a degree of caution. A strong majority of locals are now fully vaccinated, but they should still err on the side of caution and follow all the guidelines issued by health authorities despite that.
As for the authorities? Certain tourism policies have already been reconsidered and will come into effect from next Wednesday 14 July. Namely, that English language schools will close down and that all those coming to Malta will require a recognised vaccine certificate, and thus not only a negative PCR test.
In the grand scheme of things, limiting the people who can enter the country to those who are fully vaccinated is likely to prove beneficial. This might reduce the touristic market significantly, but not introducing such a measure might result in us ending up with no tourists at all, and some tourists are better than none.