Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1350550
5 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 14 MARCH 2021 OPINION WHEN Prime Minister Robert Abela addressed the nation in the wake of a record 510-infec- tion day, everyone knew that the alleged "victory over COVID" was never anywhere near. In- deed, it was just short of simply being a colossal fiasco. We were back to square one. All those brave declarations that the 'battle' had been won and that we would be back to normality, had evaporated into thin air in record time. Health minister Chris Fearne bragged about the rate of vacci- nation in Malta, or how efficient our health system was, and our standing when compared to other countries' public health performance. Poor Charmaine Gauci had to go through her weekly choreographed ripostes, now having become, frankly, de- void of any real substance. And yet those infection num- bers had exploded, and mor- talities increased. What has emerged now is that our re- sponse to COVID-19 has been stunted, and in some cases, ill- equipped to last. Instead, there has been, at certain points in the last year, a clear disregard of sci- ence. Indeed, it is utter rubbish to say that science prevailed in the de- cisions on COVID. Had it been the case, we would have acted earlier on in January, when the threat of the UK variant was al- ready known. We did not. Be- cause a good part of the deci- sion-making process has been purely political. And few civil servants are able to overcome obdurate politicians with so much power in their hands. Not even in a pandemic. Today we have lost control over COVID. Even the mortali- ties have snaffled away younger people with apparently healthy histories. The suffering of hun- dreds who have lost their rela- tives to a cruel virus is leaving them speechless at not being able to be by the side of their loved ones. Added to this is the economic disaster we are facing. In the ongoing press coverage, the worst offender has to be One News, by always making it a point to emphasise the number of recoveries before announcing the infections and mortalities. It is a flawed statistic because the vast majority of those recovered cases have not had a COVID test to ensure that they are COV- ID-free. The number of recov- ered cases is simply the number of COVID patients who have carried out their 14 days in iso- lation. I will refrain at this point to talk of my personal experience with COVID-19. It would be futile an- yway. What is important to talk about is the strained response of the government to the increase in COVID cases and why it is on the verge of collapse. In this pandemic we were forced to make sacrifices, big sacrifices. We were unable to be with loved ones, even at their deathbeds. We could not vis- it them. In the face of all these sacrifices, the imposition of nec- essary, and wider restrictions, at an earlier stage of the rise in COVID cases, was because of political obstinancy. Downright pig-headedness. Indeed, one cannot but not ask: did Charmaine Gauci pos- sess that zealous determination to tell it as it is to the health minister as she saw those rising numbers? Is there anybody in the pantheon of public health supremos slamming their hands on the table? Because at this rate, the only people we might have to thank at the end of the pandem- ic are the health frontliners who bore the sacrifice of taking care of COVID patients, and us... us who relied on our individual re- silience, who still worked long hours, raised families, paid their taxes, and respected the law. Only to see politicians dilly-dal- lying over how unpopular they might be if they do not lay down the line. It is about time that we said it as it is. The week in court In court this week, the sequence of events that led to the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia re- vealed the criminal intent of the 'Maksar' brothers and their asso- ciates. That they were not nailed earlier, to me sounds like a case of lethargy and reluctance from the police investigators. Indeed, these men had already been ar- rested in December 2017 along with the Degiorgios and Mus- cat. That they were not arrested for other crimes before Caruana Galizia was killed is surely the fault of the police too. The 'Maksar' brothers are defi- nitely not new to the police and politicians. The question would be: who did the police call in for questioning when all these gang- land murders were taking place? How many times were these people called in for questioning? Why was nobody hauled in for questioning when Romeo Bone was bombed... a man already known to the police and sus- pected in connection with other murders? That's a question for some of the same officers and investigators on the Caruana Galizia case. One could surmise that the attitude of the police then was simple: what's the problem if the bastards are killing each off? Yet, failure to act then allowed these gangs to become the un- touchables they are. The con- nections between many of the gangland murders with the same people brought on board to kill Caruana Galizia, shows the ex- tent of the failure to bring to justice the people behind these crimes. It had to be half-baked evidence and some vivid story- telling from the likes of Melvin Theuma and Vincent Muscat, to finally force some arrests. The onus is on the police and the political class entrusted to direct them, to explain how this level of criminality was seeming- ly allowed to fester. Let's stop blaming one party over the oth- er. The criminals behind bars have been cavorting with party big men, chauffering them and acting as their bodyguards in re- turn for some lucrative trading licence, for decades. How many times in the last years, did any Maltese prime minister call in the Commission- er of Police to declare a war on the gangs? Look at the same law- yers defending them.. the same money trails, the same fraud- sters and dubious characters. Queasy as I feel now to say this... but it's rather close to the truth when some former Austin Gatt lapdog like Manuel De- lia and Repubblika call Malta a mafia state. If Malta has not yet reached that pit, it is only because we have started to see some resolute action now under Robert Abela and the new po- lice commissioner. But it cannot stop now. Not ever. In the shadow of COVID-19 Saviour Balzan Superintendent for Public Health Charmaine Gauci