Sent in by a reader.
Some think of Chris Fearne as a saviour of the Maltese race. It must be the fact that our expectations of Labour politicians are so low, that their best politicians rank high in the mindset of some. For those of us who know what standards mean, Chris Fearne is a total failure.
I need not remind you of the Covid fiasco of last year. The mass events allowed to take place by our health authorities last summer have indirectly contributed to hundreds of deaths. Yes, you heard well… hundreds of deaths. Let’s stop beating around the bush. All of you who have lost a beloved one during the past few months have only the Ministry for Health to thank.
The containment of a pandemic on an island of a few square kilometres with a population of less than a million should not be very complicated. All you need to do is control your borders. Nothing more nothing less. And yet, here we are, repeating the same mistakes. The first time it is a mistake. The second time is being an idiot.
Controlling borders implies 1. having proper controls in place and 2. implementing them.
The question remains: do we really want proper controls? Is it so difficult to ask for a vaccine certificate AND a recent swab test as control at our airports and possibly before boarding the plane? Why one and not the other? Why not both? Do we not realise how much we have all sacrificed during the past months because of Covid? Is asking for both a vaccine certificate and a recent swab test too much of a hassle? Or do we want to appease Tony Zahra and his friends at all costs?
Another question remains: are we actually implementing the lax controls already in place? Rumour is going around that the airport is so understaffed that they are not coping with health checks. You can simply present the vaccine certificate of someone else and no one will realise. Can’t we even organise these simplest of tasks?
Also, is contact tracing being done properly given the recent surge of cases? Who can put our minds at rest and assure us that our contact tracing system is working properly when only a few months ago it went completely AWOL? This was another blatant failure of Chris Fearne but people tend to forget too quickly.
I understand the easing of restrictions at this stage because businesses simply cannot carry on as we were a few months ago. But what about masks? Why did we have to remove masks simply because some are saying “Uff”? Am I the only one reading articles that the Delta variant is being transmitted even by vaccinated people? Am I the only one realising that masks are here to stay? For our own good?
And what about transparency? Recently we have had a One TV reporter asking Chris Fearne whether we should make do without the daily numbers relating to Covid. Is this an indicator of things to come?
We are at a stage where we need more info on the daily numbers, not less. How many of the covid cases relate to vaccinated people and, if so, which vaccine are we talking about? How many of the daily covid cases relate to local transmission and how many relate to people coming from abroad? How many relate to which cluster and how many are sporadic? How many are being hospitalised and how many in ITU? Which variant/s are we dealing with? We simply have a right to this information. On a daily basis.
We have a right to information as much as we have a right to answers. Why do journalists not back each other up when one of their colleagues is fobbed off by Charmaine Gauci every time a sensitive question is made? People in that position are meant to reply to every question – even the most sensitive ones.
I simply hope Chris Fearne will not just read this article with his usual smirk on his face and dismiss it as some “tgergir minn Nazzjonalist tal-40,000, lumi lumi”. All I can say is that I am not one of those who voted PN all my life. I am just one who is now simply sick and tired of being sick and tired. And like me – I am sure – are thousands of others.
All I want is the standard level adopted in places like New Zealand where every Covid case that emerges is treated as a scandal with people carrying their responsibilities. Is this too much to ask for?