Watch: Malta Definitely Won’t Accept A China-Style Total Lockdown, Charmaine Gauci Says
Superintendent of Public Health Charmaine Gauci has distanced herself from China’s total lockdown, arguing that such a drastic measure to control the spread of COVID-19 wouldn’t be culturally accepted in Malta.
“China always had a different strategy and went for a zero-Covid approach, taking drastic measures even when they had a single case,” Gauci said on TVAM this morning.
“I think they took this decision to control the situation and one must also understand the country’s culture… certainly it wouldn’t be accepted in countries like Malta.”
“You don’t even need to [go for a zero-Covid approach] because the pandemic is long-term and we must learn to live with it and use the tools we have at our disposal, including what we learned about protection and the vaccine.”
“Malta never went for zero-Covid but always used proportionate measures to control the number of people who required hospital treatment.”
Shanghai, a city of some 25 million residents, entered a total lockdown on 5th April in response to a COVID-19 outbreak, with many people not even allowed to leave their homes to buy food.
Videos of residents screaming from their high-rise apartments in protest and a drone instructing them to stay quiet and “control their souls’ desire for freedom” have gone viral on social media in recent days.
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