Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1220238
2 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 11 MARCH 2020 NEWS Coronavirus CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The widely popular St Patrick's party held in the streets of St Julian's next week has been stopped and a decision will be taken in the coming hours on the feast of St Joseph cele- brated in Rabat, also next week. Abela said action will be taken to repatriate Maltese nationals caught up in Italy. All those returning from Italy will be asked to self-quarantine for 14 days. Abela said the recom- mendation to self-quarantine has been extended to all those who vis- ited any region of Italy over the past week. The advice from the Public Health Superintendence was for schools to remain open, Abela said, adding all instructions from the education au- thorities on personal and workplace hygene should be followed. The Prime Minister said decisions were based on the scientific advice given by the health authorities. He thanked Public Health Superinten- dent Charmaine Gauci and her team for their invaluable work. New measures in place to Key measures in place • Mass outdoor events with 2,000 people or more have been stopped • Mass indoor events with more than 750 people have been stopped • St Patrick's day street parties next week cannot be held • Decision yet to be taken on Rabat's St Joseph feast next week • No mandatory quarantine yet but government will change policy depending on public health advice • All people returning from Italy, or who returned over the past week, have to self-quarantine • Drivers of merchant vehicles from Italy will be tested • Schools to remain open • Premier league football matches can go ahead with no restrictions • All measures are for an indefinite period AS from tomorrow, any stu- dents or educators who visit- ed Sicily must stay home for 14 days after returning back to Malta, Chris Fearne said. Sister newspaper Illum re- ported on Tuesday that a group of children who visited Sicily with their football nursery and had returned to their schools on coming back to Malta were asked to go back home, after parents protested in light of the rapid spread of coronavirus in Italy. The government's self-quar- antine guidelines have required that anyone who visited Cov- id-19 high-risk areas - China, Singapore, Japan, Iran, South Korea and Northern Italy - stay away from work or school for 14 days, but Sicily was not on that list. The Health Minister, speaking in Parliament this afternoon, said however that any students who visited Sicily or main- land Italy would now have to self-quarantine for two weeks. Education Minister Owen Bonnici said the government was acting to put parents' mind at rest and had extended the self-quarantine requirements to include Sicily too. Bonnici also pointed out that some confusion had resulted af- ter the Malta Union of Teachers issued a directive to its members disallowing activities involving more than 30 students, lead- ing to parents' day being post- poned. The minister underlined that this wasn't a decision the government had taken, but one made by the MUT and the Un- ion of Professional Educators. "The government respects the unions' decisions, taken in ac- cordance with the law," he said. Fearne went on to clarify that the restrictions on mass events announced by the Prime Min- ister earlier today also apply to schools. Robert Abela said that outdoor events of over 2,000 people and indoor events of more than 750 are now banned, as the government steps up its measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The Health Minister said that indoor events, such as school assemblies, where more than 750 students would gath- er could also not take place. In the case of outdoor events, since no school had 2,000 stu- dents, the ban shouldn't cause a problem to activities such as lunch breaks, which take place outside and can still go ahead as normal, he said. Government's measures com- mensurate with level of virus spread Fearne, who was answering a number of questions from MPs, emphasised that the measures the government was progres- sively putting in place were commensurate with the level of spread of the virus in Malta. He said that, till now, all cases of Covid-19 infection had been imported to Malta from abroad, and that there had not been any instances of transmission in the community amongst people who were not family members. Five people have been tested positive for the coronavirus - a 12-year-old Italian girl and her parents who returned to Malta from a trip to Trentino in Ita- ly, and a 49-year-old Norwegian and his 16-year-old daughter who had also been to northern Italy. If and when the the situation changes and the virus does start spreading between people in Malta, the government would take the necessary measures, Fearne said. "This could happen tonight, tomorrow, or never," he said. And it would be at such a stage that the safety of public trans- port, for instance, would have to be looked at. "Not all measures have to hap- pen at once - they are put in place according to the stage of spread of the virus," he said. Cases in Gozo to be brought to Malta, for now If a case of coronavirus where to be found in Gozo, the Health Minister said that, at this stage, the patient would be brought to Malta for treatment. The safe- ty of Gozo Channel employees would be safeguarded in trans- porting such an infected pas- senger, he said. Should the spread of the virus worsen, however, Gozitan pa- tients would start being treat- ed at Gozo General Hospital, which Fearne said was equipped for such an eventuality. Self-quarantine rules apply to people who visited anywhere in Italy