The Prime Minister has lost control over the spread of the virus and as a consequence has rushed through measures that don’t make sense, Opposition leader Bernard Grech said on Saturday.
In an interview on Nationalist Party radio station Net FM, Grech said people were angry because measures were being pushed through in a panic, and their efficacy was questionable.
The PN leader was speaking days after authorities ordered restaurants and snack bars to restrict services to take-aways, introduced rules on private gatherings and forbade contact sports among children, among others.
Malta registered 345 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday - the second-highest daily total recorded so far.
Grech said recent restrictions keeping fathers from joining their partners after they gave birth in the obstetrics ward didn’t make sense when you still had crowding and people not wearing masks on public buses.
“It is very sad that women who have just had babies are not going to be able to have their partner by their side in the first few hours of their child’s birth, when the situation on public buses isn’t being addressed.”
Grech said the current situation with cases out of control also meant that people with other health issues were suffering, as more resources were diverted to managing the pandemic.
“When the numbers peak we have to use our resources and money to cope with controlling the pandemic, at the expense of others who need to access medical services.
“People who need to undergo major operations and need to access life saving treatments need to wait and appointments at outpatients are being postponed. This is the reality people are living.”
'PM has collapsed'
Frontliners were also under immense pressure, Grech added, explaining this is what happened when there was political interference in matters where the health authorities and experts needed to take the helm.
“Today it is evident that the government has lost control and the prime minister has collapsed. We saw it with our own eyes on TV,” Grech said.
“Unfortunately we had a prime minister who was rushing to open the country and remove restrictions early, disregarding public health.”
“It’s good to focus on the way forward and economic recovery but not at the expense of people’s lives and health.”