Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1250967
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 24 MAY 2020 OPINION Raphael Vassallo It' a crisis, all right… but only when it suits us OK, let's try and work out the lat- est little puzzle, shall we? Last Monday, an upbeat Prime Minister took two hours of the nation's time (which reminds me: has he hired Peter Jackson to direct his press conferences, by any chance?) to assure us all that Malta is winning the war on COVID-19. Exuding confidence and enthu- siasm, Robert Abela announced that a 'return to normality' would begin on Friday 22 May (as I type this, actually): a process that in- volves the re-opening of restau- rants and hairdressers, subject to a number of conditions; an increase in the number of people allowed together in groups; a relaxation of the ban on funerals, or people vis- iting elderly relatives in hospitals; the resumption of non-contact, non-team sports such as tennis; and so on and so forth. Meanwhile, in a separate inter- view on One TV, the same Rob- ert Abela also openly scoffed at concerns about a 'second wave': blithely quipping (in what may well prove to be a classic case of famous last words) that "waves are only found in the sea". And all along, he insisted that "we are not making any compro- mises with our nation's health"; and – most important of all – that "government's decisions are based on scientific proof". Hmm. Ok, perhaps it was a bit unrealistic of me to expect Dr Abela to actually provide exam- ples of this 'scientific proof' he keeps mentioning… even if he did have two whole hours to do it in. But given the enormity of the gamble he has chosen to take with people's lives… would it be too much to ask for some now? For instance: can the prime minister point towards any solid evidence that the rate of infec- tion is indeed falling? Or at least, that the curve has been flattened enough to justify any easing of the former restrictions? Probably not: because – as has already been pointed out else- where – the number of active cases in Malta was only 30 on 16 March, when the first restrictions were imposed… while on the day Abela announced their relaxation this week (18 May), it stood at 125. More worryingly, the fluctua- tions between March 16 and May 18 also suggest that the rate of contagion did, in fact, plummet soon after businesses were origi- nally forced to close. After having risen to a record 356 by 17 April, the number of active cases fell to only 58 in the three weeks of lock- down… only to start gradually in- creasing again, a week after gov- ernment decided to allow certain retail outlets to re-open on 4 May. Now: I'll admit that I can't ex- actly speak on behalf of 'science', myself – which apparently places me in a tiny minority, in a country that is overflowing with scientific experts of every description – but my unscientific interpretation of that data paints a somewhat less reassuring picture. It suggests that Malta was in- deed succeeding in keeping this virus in check – and quite admi- rably, too – for as long as those restrictions were in place. But no sooner were they lifted, even ev- er so slightly… than the situation promptly started slipping out of our control again. But like I said; that's just me… and you should know by now that my opinion doesn't count for tof- fee anyway. It does, however, seem to chime in with the concerns of pretty much every single representa- tive of the medical community of Malta: like The Medical Associ- ation of Malta, the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses, and the UĦM Voice of the Workers, for instance… which joined forces on Thursday to call for a postpone- ment of the latest measures. This, after Malta had registered 15 new cases on two consecutive days in the same week; and – more inauspiciously still – after it was announced that 246 health- care workers were currently in quarantine… 76 of them actively infected by the virus. Even more bizarrely, they also declared that the 'second wave' – the one that's supposed to be 'in the sea', remember? – was 'al- ready with us'. "Malta, with a high number of new cases and a trend which is on the increase, may soon end up with the worst new cases statistics in the Mediterranean and oth- er tourist destinations," all three medical unions warned. But then again… what do these people know about COVID-19, that Robert Abela doesn't? I mean, they're not exactly politi- cians, are they? No, they're just doctors and healthcare workers… you know, the same experts and front-liners we rely on to protect our health and safety in times of global health emergencies. So I guess their opinion can safely be ignored, too… Meanwhile, there were a few other vague contradictions in that two-hour press conference last Monday. For instance, just moments after Abela assured us all that his government was "not making any compromises with our nation's health"… his deputy Chris Fearne – who also happens to be Health Minister – went on to say pretty much the exact op- posite. Asked about doctors' concerns that "the lifting of restrictions could lead to higher coronavirus numbers in the future", Dr Fearne replied that: "While they are right, government must look to strike a balance between the nation's physical health and the long-term effects of the economy." Erm… much as I hate to point this out, that statement contra- dicts Dr Abela on two counts, not just one. For starters, it con- firms that those doctors are, in fact, 'right'… and that therefore, the number of cases can only be expected to increase as a result of these early efforts to reignite the economy. So much, I suppose, for 'waves only being found in the sea'… The second problem is that… well, what Fearne said in that press conference actually amounts to a dictionary-definition of the word 'compromise'. It does, after all, mean 'striking a balance' between different competing interests; and in this scenario – when the emphasis on public health can be seen to have adverse effects on the economy – it can only realis- tically be achieved by sacrificing some of the measures in place to protect us from COVID-19. By its own admission, then, the government is very clearly 'mak- ing a compromise with the na- tion's health'… and there doesn't seem to be very much in the way of 'scientific proof' to justify it, ei- ther. All the same, though… even a contradiction of such magnitude simply pales into insignificance, when compared to another, much more gargantuan one that has been staring us in the face for at least the past three weeks. For even as Robert Abela casu- ally played down the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic on live TV last week, his Foreign Minister Evarist Bartolo was all over Face- book and Twitter: informing the world (over and over again) that 'Malta couldn't possibly take in any more migrants', because of… um… the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only that, but the same pan- demic was even cited as justifica- tion for Malta's controversial de- cision, in the first week of April, to close its harbours to migrant vessels. Abela's own government even wrote a letter to that effect to the European Commission… but see- ing as he has clearly forgotten all about it since then, allow me to remind him of the most pertinent