Chris Fearne Expects Active COVID-19 Cases To Start Declining Soon But Urges Vigilance
Health Minister Chris Fearne has said he expects the number of active COVID-19 cases in Malta to start declining soon after several recoveries are confirmed.
“It usually takes three weeks for someone to be declared as recovered; it doesn’t mean that they’ll be sick for three weeks but that we conduct a number of tests on them and only declare them recovered until they test negative [for the virus],” Fearne said during an interview on Realta’ last night.
“They’d usually feel fine after a couple of days but a certain amount of time must pass before they can be declared healed.”
“Not many recoveries are currently showing up, but I expect the number of recoveries to increase next week and the number of active cases to start declining bit by bit.”
Malta currently has 486 active cases, its highest number since the start of the pandemic last March. While the number of hospitalisations remains low (around 5% of the active cases), Fearne warned that this is mainly because it hasn’t spread to elderly and vulnerable people.
“If the virus enters an old people’s home or spreads among vulnerable people, hospitalisations will obviously increase. We still need to be vigilant.”
The Health Minister promptly dismissed suggestions that Malta could be approaching natural herd immunity.
“We’ve had around 1,000 cases since March and that’s a little when you consider we’re a country of half a million people. Way more cases are necessary for herd immunity and we will only get herd immunity once there’s a vaccine.”
Malta has imposed restrictions on mass events and is set to introduce a swabbing system among passengers arriving from destinations classified as high-risk. However, several people have accused the government of adopting a lax approach and have called for more stringent measures.
Responding to these calls, Fearne said that while public health remains the number one priority, a balance must be struck to safeguard people’s livelihoods and social lives.
“We can’t spend all our lives locked at home and we have to interact with each other. The economy is also crucial because without it, we won’t have a strong healthcare system… we spend hundreds of millions of euro on healthcare every year and that money is generated from the economy.”
In this sense, he said it is “extremely essential” for schools to open next month, urging people to adopt a sense of civic responsibility so that the COVID-19 situation will be such that they can open their doors.
Fearne couldn’t help aiming a wry dig at Martin Balzan, president of the Medical Association of Malta, which has gone on strike in protest at the government’s handling of the pandemic.
Martin Balzan (Photo: TVM)
“Some scientists here said that COVID-19 isn’t so dangerous in Malta because of some kind of fly,” he said, an obvious reference to a paper published by Balzan which suggested long-term exposure to a sandfly which causes Sicilian fever could have helped Maltese people develop natural immunity to viruses such as COVID-19.
“We now know from evidence that it was thanks to the measures we introduced that cases dropped earlier this year,” Fearne said. “Numbers started increasing the moment people stopped observing social distancing as much as they did in April. Social distancing, personal hygiene, a high rated of testing and protecting vulnerable people are the tools we have to contain the situation.”
What do you make of Chris Fearne’s comments?
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