Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1346072
12 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 3 MARCH 2021 OPINION I stand to be corrected, of course: but I know of no crisis, anywhere in the world, that has ever been successfully resolved… by simply repeating, ad nauseam, that the situation has 'been brought under con- trol'. Still less have I ever heard of anyone actually getting away with that strategy, time and time again: even when all the facts and figures point painfully in the opposite direction. And yet – for the umpteenth time - Prime Minister Robert Abela instinc- tively fell back on precisely that same old mantra, when faced with the latest, re- cord-breaking surge of the waves he once assured us were 'only in the sea'. Yesterday, the health authorities an- nounced a staggering 336 new COVID-19 cases, along with the now-customary dai- ly death toll (three, this time… with the youngest aged only 41); to which Abela responded almost exactly as he did when the last record was set, just a few weeks earlier. On that occasion, he claimed that Mal- ta was a 'heaven on earth', compared to the 26 other EU member states; now, he argues that: "One has to take into consid- eration the context in which other coun- tries find themselves in. I am satisfied that in Malta we managed to control the pandemic…" Unfortunately for him, however, these latest stats expose both those assertions as – at best – somewhat delusional. Let's start with how Malta really com- pares to other EU countries. As has al- ready been widely pointed out, '336 new cases in Malta' equivalates to approx- imately 51,000 new cases in Germany (to mention but one example of Europe- an countries that are supposedly doing 'worse than us'). Yet last December, when Germany an- nounced its own highest daily record since the crisis began… the actual figure was only 23,637: i.e., less than half our own record today. As for the claim that 'the situation is under control': we don't really need any international comparisons, to illustrate how the limited restrictions we did intro- duce – following the similarly dramatic post-Christmas spike – have so far clear- ly failed. And it's worth revisiting what those restrictions actually were, too… and, by extension, why anyone in his right mind would have actually expected the out- come to be any different. For some obscure reason, it seems that the idea of closing down all bars – while leaving all restaurants (and all sorts of other places, where people congregate just as much) to carry on operating as usual – didn't really work, when tested in practice. Hmm, I wonder why. Could it be, per- haps, that the Covid-19 virus doesn't actually care if its victims were having a drink at a bar – or a meal at a restaurant – at the precise moment it infected them? Same goes for some of the more bizarre aspects of those regulations: such as a ban on the sale of alcohol, in all estab- lishments (including supermarkets), after 9pm. Personally I was unaware that COV- ID-19 goes around asking to see our shopping receipts, before deciding whom to infect or not (and even then: on the basis of what time, specifically, he or she bought certain products, but not oth- ers)… Seriously, though: how on earth was any of that actually supposed to deter this vi- rus from spreading, anyway? And let's face it: there wasn't very much more to those 'emergency restrictions' at all… ex- cept maybe that a previous ban on gath- erings of more than 10 people, had been reduced to only six. (Ah, but does COV- ID-19 bother counting groups, before choosing to strike? Does it even know how to count at all…?) Hardly surprising, then, that the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses would so bitterly complain – echoing the sen- timents expressed by virtually all other members of the medical community – that "the government is taking things too lightly…" Nonetheless, those December regula- tions did (ironically) succeed in proving at least one other thing: i.e., that the virus itself isn't actually influenced by the same illogical considerations as we humans so often are. And this, too, is part of the reason our national COVID-19 strategy appears to be failing. Unlike viruses, human beings may indeed be occasionally taken in, by oft-repeated claims such as 'the situation is under control'. In fact, that political strategy has a long history of spectacu- lar success – arguably nowhere more so than Malta; where people's opinions are moulded so directly by the statements of politicians… …but, well, that's human beings for you. Viruses, on the other hand, are more or less immune to that kind of thing. They don't have any emotive bonds to one po- litical party or another; so they are not quite so easily swayed into believing only what they want to believe, for purely po- litical reasons. And this is why those numbers are so clearly eclipsing all Robert Abela's at- tempts at maintaining his usual upbeat, positive mood. There are, after all, polit- ical failures that can always be somehow 'swept under the carpet'; or spun away by a well-oiled propaganda machine… or, more frequently, just ignored indefinitely (along with all the resignation calls)… …but there can be no 'sweeping', 'spin- ning' or 'ignoring' a steadily mounting death-toll, caused by a viral epidemic that has clearly spiralled out of all control. That's the sort of thing that people tend to find out about, sooner or later… and the more victims die from this disease, the more survivors will emerge from this crisis having lost someone in their wider circle of family and friends. Those people, in particular, are unlikely to be impressed by Robert Abela's 'un- changed melody', since this entire crisis began. And – to be fair to the Prime Min- ister – he seems to have belatedly realised this himself: by assuring us that his next step, in the face of the latest spike, will be 'decided by the health authorities'. It is not, perhaps, quite the same thing as 'declaring a public health emergency' – which Robert Abela did do, almost ex- actly a year ago today (i.e., at a time when the number of new cases could be count- ed on the fingers of one hand)… but it is, at least, a commitment to bow to any rec- ommendation by the Public Health Ad- ministration. As such, however, it also bats the ball squarely back into the court of Char- maine Gauci and Chris Fearne: both of whom were last heard arguing against the concept of another partial lock-down (admittedly, in reaction to much lower figures). In any case, however: what their next step turns out to be is something we shall have to wait at least one more day to find out. Certainly, a lot of people (not least, the entire medical profession) ex- pect nothing less than a temporary lock- down… or 'curtain-breaker', if you pre- fer… of the kind that government has so far doggedly resisted from day one. But while we can't predict what the ul- timate decision will be… it's not exactly hard to spot the political currents under- lying the general discussion. Indeed, Robert Abela himself has al- ready spelt them out for us, in no uncer- tain terms. At a political event last Janu- ary, he even told his supporters that his decision to avoid a lockdown was taken on the basis of… (I kid you not)… 'Mal- ta's attractiveness as a foreign investment opportunity': "Now is the moment that foreign inves- tors are surveying their options on where they can potentially expand. When they cast their eye on Malta, they'll see a coun- try which didn't close its factories and keep its workers at home, unable to go to work. In fact, we took measures that al- lowed workers to keep on working…" And this, in turn, illustrates another way COVID-19 also acts as a 'great lev- eller': it very literally forces us to weigh one concern (public health) against an- other (money)… and, unlike all the other issues we are more used to contending with: this time, there is no 'negotiation' of its terms. Like the classic highwayman of old, COVID-19 holds us at gunpoint and demands 'our money or our life'. And it cannot be appeased by compromise. It's either one, or the other - so that the suc- cess of one will automatically be offset by the failure of the other. To put that another way: the imposition of a lockdown, in today's circumstances, would no doubt wreak untold havoc to the economy… but it may save tens (if not scores) of human lives. Conversely, this also means that the cost of not imposing one – or, if not a full lockdown, at least some form of (effec- tive) emergency measures – will have to be measured in human life, too. This automatically raises an uncom- fortable question for Robert Abela: how many human lives will the government consider to be worth sacrificing, in pur- suit of its aims to 'improve Malta's eco- nomic pull-power in a post-COVID fu- ture'? Today's death toll is already 319, and counting: at what point, exactly, will it start becoming 'too high a price to pay'… even in exchange for long-term econom- ic survival? And I'll grant you: it's not exactly the easiest (or even fairest) choice any Prime Minister can ever be expected to face. But that, as the situation stands today, is precisely the question Robert Abela has been called on to answer. So what can I say? Let's just hope that, this time round, he at least comes up with something just slightly more origi- nal (and helpful) than… 'the situation is under control'… again… It's a classic case of: 'your money or your life' Raphael Vassallo