Robert Abela Pledges To Call For Shorter Quarantine ‘As Soon As Enough People Are Boosted’
Prime Minister Robert Abela has pledged to take a stance in favour of cutting quarantine from the current ten days once the health authorities inform him that “enough” people have been boosted.
“As soon as the health authorities tell me that enough people have got vaccinated and that rules can be relaxed, I will be the first to push for quarantine rules and other restrictions to be relaxed,” Abela said during an interview yesterday to mark his two-year anniversary since becoming Prime Minister.
Malta recently cut its quarantine period from 14 to 10 days, but this is still higher than several European countries, some of whom have cut the isolation period to as low as five days.
Abela defended controversial new rules which will come into force tomorrow, limiting entry to several establishments to adequately vaccinated people, arguing their sole intention is “to give more strength to the vaccine”.
“The closer we get to that percentage of vaccinated people, the sooner we can remove restrictions,” he said.
Although Abela didn’t specify what percentage of the population he’s aiming for, he told Lovin Malta earlier this week that it could be lower than the 85% recently recommended by the Malta Medical Association.
The Prime Minister insisted that the government was faced with only two options – increasing immunity to COVID-19 via the vaccine or re-imposing harsh restrictions as the likes of Latvia had done last October through a four-week lockdown.
“We could have resorted to restrictions but we have this tool [the vaccine] which we can utilise. Despite enormous pressure from the Opposition, we never went into a lockdown because we knew it would have been too draconian and it would have been tough for the economy to recover from it. I believe the people recognise that this was the right decision.”
In his speech, Abela twice hit out at Opposition Leader Bernard Grech for his new stance against the new rules, deriding his political opponent as a “populist” who is ignoring the advice of health experts.
“The Opposition Leader first said he endorsed the rules, then changed his position a few days later after seeing people’s reaction on social media,” he said. “You can’t be populistic when leading a country through a pandemic. Bernard Grech should leave it in the hands of the experts to guide us through using objective, scientific criteria.”
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