Health Minister Chris Fearne said health experts have advised the government against stopping flights from countries or regions at high risk of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

“We are following the situation closely because it’s changing by the hour,” Fearne told a press conference after the first coronavirus case was confirmed in Malta. “As of now, all the advice we have from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control [an EU agency, the WHO and the EU health security council is not to stop flights. I asked them specifically about Northern Italy but that was advice.”

“If the situation changes, then the advice will change and we’ll act according to that advice.”

Moreover, he noted that while Malta’s first COVID-19 patient, a 12-year-old girl, had contracted the virus after visiting Northern Italy, she had caught a flight back to Malta from Rome, in the centre of the country.   

People who sat close to the girl on the plane are being identified ahead of potential contact tracing.

“She wasn’t symptomatic on the plane so the risk of the virus spreading to other passengers is very low but we’re still going to evaluate the situation in detail,” Superintendent of Public Health Charmaine Gauci said.

Fearne also said the government sees no reason to close any schools or stop any mass activities so far as the patient in question and her family had all immediately self-quarantined after returning to Malta, as per the Health Department’s advice to people returning from countries and regions at high risk of the coronavirus.

However, an inter-ministerial taskforce will convene on Monday to assess the situation in terms of public health, security, the economy, mass activities and schools and decide whether the government should implement other measures to prevent the spread of the virus.