This weekend will mark exactly one year since I returned to Malta on the first flight after lockdown. Fellow passengers expressed shock as medics dressed like astronauts came on board and led us solemnly to passport control where a beam was pointed at our foreheads to check our temperatures.

There were similar checks at Ċirkewwa. One potential passenger failed the test but boarded anyway. He was chased by policemen – and taken away under guard in an ambulance – and the rest of us waited while the entire ship was disinfected, just in case.

It all looked very impressive. And I spent the next two weeks at home, alone, under what was described as “enforced quarantine”.

This being Malta, the quarantine was not “enforced”. For the two weeks of solitary confinement, nobody came to check whether I was at home. I was disappointed; I would have appreciated a visit.

Malta had reacted to the virus quicker than many countries and assumed, therefore, that it had “beaten the virus”. So… “come to Malta for a rave to escape lockdown…”

They might well have advertised: “Come to Malta – and bring the virus with you.”

For (and this is something we forget, except when trying to explain high prices) Malta is an island. By definition anything – whether it’s imported food or a deadly plague – can get here only if it comes by air or by sea. But tourism counts. It’s what keeps these rocks’ heads above water. And wealth trumps health, here. In spades.

It was not until October that Ryanair stopped flying, announcing no more flights before April this year. But, by now, the Maltese were still being infected by people who had attended the rave… were catching the virus from kids who had continued to party at Paceville (where the police dare not go, for fear of catching COVID-19, or maybe of being knifed)… or from construction sites… or in offices, where people gathered round the water cooler… or from family members.

Or… from tourists who kept arriving but were not being checked at the airport.

However, Gozo is another island. It benefits or suffers (the difference being whether you are buying or selling) from what we call ‘double isolation’ and means that the virus can’t get here… unless it comes from Malta.

That means – and I am typing this slowly so that readers can get my drift – that either the Maltese carry it across on the ferry or that tourists bring it, via Malta, to Gozo. Or (and we have heard only one case of this) an ‘essential’ Gozitan commuter brings it back.

Somebody obviously worked this out and, for a brief time, all non-essential travel between the islands was stopped.

Destinations like Cyprus, Greece, Mallorca and Ibiza are currently looking more attractive to UK tourists- Revel Barker

Then, a new Gozo minister, more concerned about wealth than health, called for “local tourism”, even reducing the cost of bringing a car and of bringing the virus, too.

The figures for Gozo following the Christmas holiday invasion by the Maltese peaked at 99 cases. After the carnival non-event, during which ‘inspectors’ found nobody at all in breach of the rules, they were up again.

Friday before last, two record figures were announced: 258 new daily cases in Malta and 153 active cases on Gozo. The day after that the new daily record figure was 263.

By Thursday last week, it was 363. Last Friday, it was 283, with no mention of active cases on Gozo.

At the time of writing, the government has not yet got round to inoculating its over 75 age group. It could, if it had the will (and maybe the right person in charge on this island), inoculate the entire population of Gozo in three days.

By banning non-essential travel, but allowing visitors who had been inoculated, this island could then remain virus free. If the Maltese determined to cross the channel had to wait until they’d had the jab, the take-up for vaccination would be forced to speed up.

Destinations like Cyprus, Greece, Mallorca and Ibiza are currently looking more attractive to UK tourists. Once they discover that the locals also speak English and that costs (including, incidentally, the price of houses) are much cheaper there, they may never return to Malta.

The queen (and let’s remember that, as members of the Commonwealth, she is also Malta’s queen and, in any case,  has a special relationship with the islands) says people should be inoculated and “think about people other than themselves”.

And if it happens to be that Malta – because of its membership of the ramshackle EU – doesn’t have enough vaccines to go round, it should play its queen card and remind the UK that it’s a member of the Commonwealth. After all, they have promised to help underdeveloped countries with supplies.

They may consider helping one that’s vastly overdeveloped, too.

Revel Barker is a former UK journalist.