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MaltaToday 18 November 2020 MIDWEEK

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2 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 18 NOVEMBER 2020 NEWS COVID-19 Call for Tenders Laptop devices for employees in church schools The Secretariat for Catholic Education (SfCE) in Malta would like to announce the launch of the following tender: SfCE 002/2020: Tender for the supply of Laptop Devices for Employees in Church Schools [Deadline: 14 th December 2020 at 09:30] Tender documents may be obtained from the Archdiocese of Malta website: https://church.mt/jobs/ Interested bidders are to submit their SEALED TENDERS by the deadline indicated above. Tenders are to be addressed to the Secretariat for Catholic Education 16, The Mall, Floriana FRN 1472 Further information may be requested by email on tenders.schools@maltadiocese.org This project may be part financed by the EUROPEAN UNION MATTHEW VELLA A group of COVID-19 'sceptics' are calling out what they say is a "national panic" on coronavirus cases which they say is unjus- tified. In a judicial protest filed against the Su- perintendent for Public Health, a group of protestors, which includes the environmen- tal activist and lawyer Rudolph Ragonesi of the Gaia Foundation, argued that public health restrictions are unlawful without a declaration of a public state of emergency. The group is protesting restrictions of self-isolation on so called 'asymptomatic' carriers of the COVID-19 virus who are otherwise healthy, and are even doubting results from the PCR testing. They are also accusing Superintendent Prof. Charmaine Gauci of failing proper due diligence by employing harsh restric- tions without declaring a state of public emergency as required by law. "She has not informed the public ade- quately or transparently enough whether the patients diagnosed with COVID-19 have indeed suffered serious symptoms. Had she done so, she would have given a more realistic picture of the national situa- tion, rather than create a national panic on a disease that is no more serious than the flu or pneumonia, as doctors globally have said." They are demanding that the Superin- tendence adopts the Great Barrington Dec- laration, which has been signed by 45,000 doctors globally, and "immediately revoke decisions that do not make medical sense but breach fundamental rights, including draconian measures such as wearing masks in open spaces more than one metre away from other people; social distancing meas- ures that prevent family gatherings, espe- cially those in their last days of their lives, and other regulations preventing burials of relatives." They also want the revocation of "meas- ures that force clubs and schools to police citizens" and for the publication of all sci- entific studies informing the COVID-19 strategy employed by the Public Health Su- perintendence. Also thrown in for good measure, is a de- mand to stop the transmission of 4G Plus and 5G technology until the safety of these radio frequencies is determined, and to see whether there is a link between electromag- netic fields and deep-vein thrombosis. The protestors said the PCR test was not useful in establishing who is infected by COVID-19, citing the word of Prof. Karl Henaghan, director of the University of Ox- ford's Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, and former Pfizer chief science officer Dr Michael Yeadon. "They said the PCR test should not be used for diagnostic results of the virus, and that this results in a lot of false positives, up to 90% of all PCR tests." They claimed a large number of people allegedly testing "positive" for COVD-19, do not even have symptoms of disease, and therefore, they cannot be said to be sick. "Instead these people are being referred to as 'asymptomatic'. This category is of prej- udice to healthy people who are labelled as sick or threats to others, without any scien- tific basis. They are subjected to strict meas- ures to allegedly fight the spread of a conta- gious disease that has not yet been isolated. They are an imposition of quarantine, that is a power the law dispenses only on people who are sick, not those who are healthy." The protestors said the interpretation of the Superintendent's powers were too wide and without legal or scientific basis, and was creating a national panic "last seen in the Second World War." "However, the data issued by the health authorities shows that the COVID-19 virus has not been serious in Malta, and not more serious than the seasonal flu, which even when it affects the elderly and immunosup- pressed individuals, can still cope with it." The protestors said the Maltese public was being influenced by statistics issued by the public health department, with a pic- ture of that appears "graver than it really is", and without giving people a clear and real- istic reason for the cause of deaths of people who succumbed to COVID-19's effects. "The public health department has never before published some daily or weekly list of elderly and immunosuppressed people who succumbed to influenza or pneumonia, which number in the hundreds every year… Today, even if a death is caused by some other disease when COVID-19 strikes, the authorities are raising a national panic be- cause people are believing these people are actually dying of COVID-19." The protestors also said Malta has gone beyond WHO guidelines by ordering the mandatory wearing of facemasks, without any scientific evidence backing it. "This ac- tion cannot be considered as reasonable in a democratic society, as laid in the Consti- tution." "The draconic rule for people and chil- dren to wear masks as soon as they exit their homes or cars, is denying them the right to fresh and natural air or day long, and to al- low their bodies to develop their immune system – something that is essential to fight viruses, pathogens, and bacteria. This is an- other reason why the Superintendent has failed to exercise due diligence in her role." COVID sceptics want removal of facemasks, accuse Gauci of creating 'national panic' Public Health Superintendent Charmaine Gauci A 29-year-old woman was hos- pitalised following a traffic acci- dent on Tuesday morning in San Gwann. The accident occurred at around 8am in Triq in-Naxxar. Police said the woman, who was driving a PGO Ligero motorcycle, lost control and crashed. She was taken to Mater Dei Hospital for further treatment and is suffering from serious injuries. A police investigation is on- going. Motorcyclist seriously injured in traffic accident

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