PRESS RELEASE: MALTA NEEDS TO STRENGTHEN ITS EFFORTS RE CORONAVIRUS EMERGENCY

In these extraordinary times brought by the global coronavirus emergency, the Maltese Association for Consumer Rights (ACR) calls on the Maltese authorities to take the additional urgent action needed to safeguard the health of Malta’s people.

Prevention is better than cure.  Towards this end, the ACR urges the Maltese government to suspend flights from high-risk coronavirus regions to Malta. Heed must be taken to the fact that infected persons from northern Italy have been the first coronavirus cases imported to many countries around the world.  Just this week, seven Italian travellers tested positive for the coronavirus on arrival in China, and seventeen Italians tested positive on arrival in India.

The argument that someone from other places may still bring in the coronavirus does not justify leaving the doors wide open to the virus from high-risk regions.  Suspending travel from coronavirus hotspots will significantly reduce the potential number of coronavirus cases that may enter Malta.  And every day Malta is coronavirus-free, we save lives, money and other limited resources.

Stopping the entry of non-Maltese residents from high-risk regions is particularly needed because, albeit helpful, thermal screening at entrypoint cannot identify all travellers infected with the coronavirus.  Some infected persons at times do not have a temperature despite still being contagious.  This has even been acknowledged by the World Health Organisation.

The ACR also reiterates the call made by the Medical Association of Malta and the Confederation of Maltese Trade Unions, that only Maltese residents be allowed entry to Malta from coronavirus hotspots.  Quarantine for these residents should be mandatory and not by ‘invitation’ only.

The ACR urges the government to take these steps with urgency so as to delay and mitigate as much as possible the arrival of the coronavirus in Malta.  The hardships and extreme measures that afflicted countries are being compelled to take clearly show the severe negative repercussions that a coronavirus outbreak has on a country.

The ACR contends that prevention is better than cure, especially when cure is not guaranteed and when effective vaccination and medication do not exist.  It must be noted that the coronavirus is turning out to be far deadlier than the flu. Whereas about 0.1% of people who get the flu die, the coronavirus’ death rate is now at about 3.4%, based on the current numbers of cases and deaths.

With the coronavirus, Malta must not make the same fatal mistake that it has made with the construction industry, that is, it must not put short-term money gains before people’s health and well-being.

The World Health Organisation to date does not recommend application of travel restrictions with regard to COVID-19.  However, in a recent report, the WHO has acknowledged that some countries are compelled to impose travel restrictions due to “vulnerabilities,” such as “small island states context”.   This is exactly Malta’s vulnerable context.

It must be borne in mind that Malta is a highly-dense populated country, with most of its towns fused together into a city-state.  A coronavirus outbreak would likely spread through the whole population like wildfire.  Overnight, Malta risks having its whole population in isolation or under quarantine, with all schools and most workplaces closed.

Additionally, being a very small country, it is unlikely that Malta would have adequate intensive care capacity for a large number of critically-ill infected persons.  To illustrate, with about 3000 infected persons, Italy has over 300 person in critical care.  How many infected persons would Malta be able to give critical care within Mater Dei’s Intensive Therapy Unit?

The ACR commends the sterling work that the public health authorities and other entities are undertaking.  However, it deems that Malta’s contingency preparations for an eventual coronavirus outbreak are inadequate.  Malta’s planned ward for up to twelve infected persons is unlikely to be sufficient if a coronavirus outbreak takes place. With urgency, the government needs to set up a treatment unit which could treat a substantial number of infected persons.

The authorities should also inform the public how many critically-ill patients may be treated with Malta’s available  lung protective ventilation equipment.  The World Health Organisation has urged countries to ensure that they have sufficient availability of this equipment since lung protective ventilation is vital to save critically-ill coronavirus infected patients.  Many afflicted countries are in fact struggling to provide such critical care treatment to the increasing number of critically-ill infected patients.

Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures.  Malta needs to act now.  Only in this way can we minimise the loss to life and to our long-term economic well-being that the coronavirus threatens to brings.