The alarming spike in COVID-19 cases over the past week, with record after record being broken and active cases surpassing 3,000 for the first time, is evidence of a government whose approach to the pandemic has often been muddled.

The new and far more contagious variants has certainly armed the virus with the element of surprise against policymakers trying to project its spread.

But surely for our experts it was not unexpected that the situation should degenerate the way it did, following the UK’s terrible experience with trying to control its variant and the detection of multiple cases of it in Malta.

It is legitimate to ask then, why the opening hours of restaurants were initially extended along with the promise of easing other restrictions. Did government specialists not draw attention to the clear signs of a potential upturn in cases? The government has now had to completely reverse direction and order all restaurants to close to walk-in customers. We have been here before.

This is a sign that in its understandable zeal to keep the economy ticking over, the government’s ultimate decision makers, foremost among them the prime minister, have not paid enough heed to the science, regardless of Robert Abela’s declarations to the contrary.

Fines have been increased, when it was obvious that the problem was lack of enforcement.

The vaccine rollout is moving as fast as it can, and the government has high hopes of the nation attaining herd immunity. However, an exercise carried out by Times of Malta revealed that given the current rate of inoculation, this will not happen before October. And in the race against the variants, the vaccine is not a sure winner.

Health Minister Chris Fearne has spoken of a vaccination capacity four times greater than the current rate. That may well be the case, but he is fully aware that delivery of our current programme is not governed by our ability to put shots into arms but by their availability.

For that we are entirely reliant on the EU, which has failed dismally in procuring adequate amounts of vaccines in a timely fashion. Until the EU gets its act together, the aim of having an adequate number of people vaccinated by September remains a dream. Every decision Malta makes must be based on that reality.

The government likes to compare our handling of the pandemic with the EU’s worst performers. We are an island and we should be looking instead at how other island nations have performed with their no-tolerance approach to the virus. New Zealand, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, New Caledonia, Fiji, Mauritius and others have all done much better in controlling the pandemic. By that yardstick, this government has failed. It takes courage to shut down pre-emptively rather than take measures reactively. The government has shown time and again that it leans too much towards economic interests.

The end result is to drag out the economic uncertainty and prevent the country from fully opening up its internal economy. In the long run, this approach saves neither lives nor livelihoods.

This administration is full of people, medical and other professionals, who are doing their utmost to act in the best interests of the population. The government needs to get that priority right once and for all.

It is, however, pointless blaming the government for everything. We cannot let COVID fatigue creep in at a time when we are faced with such worrying virus figures.

Ultimately, the buck stops with each and every one of us.