Charmaine Gauci Offers Cautiously Optimistic Forecast On COVID-19 Becoming Endemic
Superintendent of Public Health Charmaine Gauci has offered a cautiously optimistic outlook on the possibility that COVID-19 could soon become endemic.
“It will become endemic when the situation is stable,” Gauci said when interviewed on ONE Breakfast this morning.
“It doesn’t mean there won’t be any deaths. Malaria is endemic in some African countries and it still kills people but the situation is stable and under control to a certain extent. We will get there with COVID-19 bit by bit but we must first emerge from this acute phase.”
Gauci confirmed that the “new normal” she envisages once the acute phase is over will include standing events and urged people to get boosted.
However, she insisted that Malta’s strategy of easing restrictions bit by bit, rather than all at once as Denmark and the UK have done, is the correct one.
“We have always been careful and conservative, relaxing measures step by step to ensure the impact won’t be substantial,” Gauci said.
“We must protect our hospital, while also offering hospital services to other illnesses.”
Prime Minister Robert Abela recently called for discussion on the virus to shift towards treating it as endemic like the flu and other seasonal viruses, a similar call made by his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez.
“The way things are looking internationally, there’s an element of caution but also a general sentiment that while the virus is here to stay we can keep on living our lives as normally as possible regardless,” Abela said earlier today.
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