A paper published in the Journal of Community Health, by Professor Charmaine Gauci, the Superintendent for Public Health, doctors’ association head Martin Balzan, Mater Dei Hospital’s chief operating officer Steve Aguis, Sarah Cuschieri from the University’s faculty of medicine and paediatrician Victor Grech provided a critical view on what led to the current situation related to Covid-19 cases in Malta.
Stability was disrupted when two major mass events were organised despite various health professional warnings.
In the paper, the authors state that two mass events triggered Malta’s second peak in COVID-19 infections after the pandemic had been suppressed in Malta.
The report states that Malta, the ‘poster child of Europe’s COVID-19 first wave success’ also fell victim shortly after it welcomed the first tourists on 1st of July 2020. Only four positive cases were reported over the successive 15 days. Stability was disrupted when two major mass events were organised despite various health professional warnings.
In a matter of few just days, daily cases rose to two-digit figures, with high community transmission, a drastic rise in active cases, and a rate per/hundred thousand in Europe second only to Spain.
The paper states that besides lost revenue from tourism, the second wave led to challenges imposed on the healthcare system due to a literal tripling of the swabbing rate, COVID-19 admissions and ICU stays, the usage of offsite locations to house patients and health care workers who needed to be quarantined due to inadvertent exposure to COVID-19.
Frontliners were swamped with swabbing requests while trying to sustain robust case management, contact tracing and follow-up. Indeed, the number of hospitalizations and the need for intensive ventilation increased. Despite the initial cases were among young adults, within weeks a small spill off on the more elderly population was observed.
The researched report said that Inconsistent messages were disseminated to the population from some sectors outside health reassuring the public that “everything is under control” and “Malta is open for business” gave false signals that COVID-19 was over and all touristic activities could resume without limitation. Concurrently the Superintendent of Public Health along with the Minster of Health continued to emphasise to the public the importance of remaining vigilant and maintain social distancing etc. This resulted in an uproar by the medical professionals and others. The medical doctors association issued industrial actions that stopped all elective healthcare services unless mass gatherings were banned by the government.
Concurrently, the Superintendent of Public Health office along with the Maltese government issued ‘Standards for Gatherings’ mitigation standards, followed by a legal notice through the Public Health Act imposing a fine of 3,000 euro if these standards were breached by organizers. A number of festivals and organised mass events cancelled in light of these mitigation standards, but events were still not banned completely as events up to 100 indoor and 300 outdoors could occur. Indeed, another cluster of COVID-19 cases was established in early August 2020, originating mostly from Malta’s nightclub-disco area of Paceville.
Restrictions were re-introduced including mandatory mask wearing in specific locations and capping of the total number of people in a single gathering. Malta is an island and the potential for containment would have been relatively simple and effective and permitting mass gatherings was unwise.
The report states that protecting the health of the population should take centre stage while carrying out extensive testing, contact tracing and surveillance. Containment and mitigation along with public cooperation is the key to curbing resurgences especially with the influenza season around the corner.
