Those who are fully vaccinated and come into secondary contact with a positive patient should not have to quarantine, the Malta Chamber of Commerce has argued.

In a statement released earlier today, the chamber labelled such measures as “unreasonable” to the point employers are having to bear the brunt of employees being stuck at home. 

“It is totally unreasonable to put these people under a mandatory 14-day quarantine when they are secondary contacts of a confirmed case,” it said. 

The Chamber of Commerce also claims that it has been made aware of instances where whole families have been made to quarantine after a vaccinated child attended a summer school programme where another child tested positive.

“If we really believe that vaccines break the chain of contagion, we need to be pragmatic and shouldn’t be placing fully vaccinated secondary contacts in quarantine,” said President Marisa Xuereb.

The chamber also argued that such measures are impacting business productivity and alerted to the dichotomy between employers being asked to encourage their employees to get vaccinated while authorities treat them no differently to those who are unvaccinated.

“The Malta Chamber urges authorities not to take unreasonable decisions and knee-jerk reactions,” it ended.

Many countries are currently experiencing a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, spurred by the delta variant, with governments pressuring the public to get vaccinated in order to reduce the rate of transmission. 

Italy recently announced a ‘green pass’ system whereby those who wish to attend certain venues, such as restaurants and gyms, must present a valid COVID-19 certificate or be denied entry.

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