In a wrap-up of the year that was, Fiona Galea Debono looks at 2020 through the eyes of some key players behind the pandemic. Like a ‘tsunami’ with a ‘colossal’ impact on health, the economy, tourism, education and each of us, this is how the novel coronavirus hit Malta and the outlook for the future.

It all started with the first cases on March 7 and the world as we knew it crashed.

The pandemic had invaded Malta and a partial lockdown kicked in at the end of that month. A brief summer lull was fast followed by the spike of the ‘second wave’ as mixed messages led the public to let down their guard and mass gatherings opened the way for the virus to spread.

Nine months later, a vaccine is being distributed and the promise of normality is on the horizon.

But along the way, there have been plenty of casualties. To date, COVID-19 has taken 210 lives, mostly elderly, who have felt the full brunt of the virus.

The economy has also suffered, with tourism and travel taking a mega blow.

A mental illness

Mental health – and not physical – has been the worst hit by COVID-19, according to Dr Tanya Melillo, who leads the Public Health Response Team’s case management.

Looking back at the hardest year of her working life, Melillo, who also heads the Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Unit, had been tasked with preparing the first pandemic health plan in 2005.

She admits the measures drawn up then, including closing schools and places of entertainment, teleworking, curfews and lockdowns, seemed exaggerated and unlikely to happen – even though those working in emergency preparedness and response were aware a pandemic would eventually break out and affect everyone.

The first wave of COVID-19 was an “achievement” for public health because, unlike other countries, hospitalisations and deaths were minimal. But this all changed by August, when the numbers started increasing. By October, there were over 100 cases a day and deaths almost daily.

“This was a low for the Public Health Response Team, for the country and the health sector,” Melillo admitted.

“Malta did well when it had the trust of the nation and everyone listened to public health advice, aimed always at keeping deaths to a minimum and hospitalisation rates low. 

“But when people stopped listening, the situation spiralled out of control as was the case in summer,” she said.

We needed to improve our communication campaigns, especially to reach all non-Maltese living here

In hindsight, she acknowledges that “we definitely needed to scale up faster with human resources when the second wave came. It hit us hard, we were not fast enough to deal with the large number of positive cases and so we were unable to reach patients in a timely manner.

“We also needed to improve our communication campaigns, especially to reach all non-Maltese living here as our messages were not always getting through to them.”

Melillo also believes there should have been more preparedness to help people in quarantine with other issues that really burdened them, including lack of food, the need to move to alternative accommodation to prevent vulnerable persons in the same household from being exposed, those with dementia, autism or other challenging behaviour.

Being inside for 14 days was a huge stress and burden on their carers;, on those with mental issues and even those who took care of farm animals, crops and racing horses, or even simply needed to walk a dog.

And the aftermath of the pandemic is not looking pretty either.

Melillo envisages a rise in mental health issues, sexually transmitted diseases, smoking, alcohol and substance abuse, obesity and cases of more advanced cancer as less people got screened for early diagnosis.

Melillo is, however, proud of the response team and all its doctors, who got together by the end of February and have been working hard ever since, handling every aspect of the process in this pandemic with the help of other frontliners, including volunteers who joined forces.

She believed COVID-19 has been an eye-opener and that “we need to stop taking things for granted and appreciate more what we have”.

Low consumer confidence

Before any silver linings, there were only clouds in the sky – and no commercial planes – as the airport shut on March 21.

During the next month, it would handle the same number of passengers it usually dealt with in an hour in summer.

Malta International Airport CEO Alan Borg describes 2020 as “the promise of more fine weather suddenly turning into a violent storm, which was not on the charts, and which will make us appreciate the good days even more when it blows over”.

To date, MIA has registered a 75 per cent drop in passenger movements – 1.7 million – in the period between January and November over the same stretch last year.

Recovery expected to start in the second half of 2021

By comparison, in 2019, it had reached the 1.7 million passenger mark by April, Borg pointed out.

“To put things more into perspective, between 1999 and 2019, it had never closed off a year with less than 2.59 million passenger movements.”

The situation remained “very quiet” since the reopening to commercial flights in mid-July, but Borg singled out November 24 and December 8 as the slowest yet, with just one passenger flight taking off.

On November 24, the airport welcomed 55 passengers, while December 8 saw the arrival of 81.

While only more time would tell whether things could have been done better, or differently, Borg maintained a more harmonised approach to health and safety measures at EU level early in the crisis would have helped prevent some erosion in consumer confidence.

Although it remains very low, research has shown a pent-up demand for leisure travel, Borg noted.

Unlike past crises, COVID-19 has hit both health and financial aspects, which will make for a longer recovery time.

Recovery is expected to start in the second half of 2021, and MIA will be rebuilding its route network, keeping a balanced business mix to ensure sustainable growth.

Meanwhile, it plans to continue working on restoring consumer confidence by maintaining the safest airport environment possible and exploring new technologies for an “even more contactless and seamless” experience.

Colossal damage and a slow comeback

Hotels would have had a much better Q3 performance and Malta could have possibly been a pandemic-safe destination to travel to had the number of cases been better controlled, said Westin Dragonara Resort general manager Michael Kamsky.

Describing the impact of COVID-19 on the tourism industry as “colossal” – newly refurbished hotels became ghost towns as airports shut – Kamsky is, however, “cautiously positive” about the future.

In the front seat of the impact were accommodation service providers, event organisers, restaurants, bars, coffee shops, taxis, but also hairdressers, the arts, hotel food suppliers…

A defining moment for the industry was when the airport reopened and numbers were in control – enough to start generating a small business comeback that lasted only a few weeks until mid-August, Kamsky recalled.

His predictions: “With the vaccine on our doorstep, we can start looking at a slow comeback of business in Q2 2021, with 50-60 per cent occupancies in Q3, while Q4 can possibly bring conference bookings for 2022/3.

“My concern, at this stage, is that if the recovery is good, I suspect we will not have enough airline seat capacity and air fares will spike, diverting business to our competitors.”

The full impact on tourism was yet to be felt, Kamsky continued, pointing out that according to Central Bank research, almost half of Malta’s air routes have been wiped off the map, taking air travel back 15 years – “a very long time in this day and age”.

Promotion of the island needed to remain “switched on” in the coming weeks when Malta’s markets would have more time at home to research their upcoming summer holiday, Kamsky advised.

On an optimistic note, Kamsky said that 2020 had also presented “new opportunities, especially for those willing to be open to change and quick in taking decisions.

“Key to success has been agility”.

The threat of the aftermath

It has been a “tsunami of a year” for education, said the president of the Independent Schools’ Association, Sue Midolo, who recalls being shocked into closing schools back in March and creating fully-fledged online learning programmes in 48 hours.

Then, in September, the situation looked worrisome, and the head of St Catherine’s High School questioned “whether we would manage to keep our schools open and run concurrent livestreaming of lessons between bubble classes and students at home.

“While I am happy my school is managing to ride the waves of this tsunami, I am also aware that the threat of COVID-19 is not simply the threat of what is now... but also the aftermath.”

We need to come up with resources, spaces and time to restore souls and spirits

While teaching has continued, how much students have actually learned is still to be evaluated and schools will have to contend with this, post-pandemic. 

However, Midolo feels the education sector has helped maintain many families’ sanity because it tried to convey a sense of continuity and routine in a pandemic scenario where everything else was in chaos, with educators going out of their way to deliver this sense of stability to children.

Midolo trusts the vaccine uptake will be good but is also aware there is much to deal with post-COVID. 

“The traumatic response we are already witnessing in educators, students and families will need to be handled and we will need to come up with resources, spaces and time to restore souls and spirits,” she said.

“It will be a journey of reconnection, restoration and retrieval in many fields, but more so in education.” 

The pandemic has also been a time to rethink teaching methods, try out different strategies and test online tools, and Midolo hopes the lessons learned would be used to make the next much-needed leap and delve deeper into the benefits of the digital world to the education sector.

The opportunities in the slowdown

The economy has been another victim of the virus as the country set out to offset the damage and redress the fine balance between health measures, mental well-being and business interests.

International travel practically ground to a halt for most of the year, and consumer confidence took a serious knock, with tourism and its ancillary sectors being the first to be negatively affected.

And the repercussions of the slowdown continue to unfold as the longer-term effects of the pandemic in areas such as manufacturing are only now being registered, said David Xuereb, president of the Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry.

Assistance offered by the government was indispensable

The assistance afforded to these economic sectors through the government’s wage supplements was indispensable, Xuereb said. 

Looking at the silver lining, Xuereb believes “we have become more sensitive to the priorities in our personal lives and in our business”.

He urged businesses to take on the ‘opportunity’ the slowdown presented to think outside the box and question the sustainability of established economic activities.