The past few days have seen the number of new COVID-19 cases holding steady at a relatively low level. This is good news and means the health authorities’ prodigious efforts to keep the daily tally of positive tests down, and ‘flatten the curve’ of infections, appear to have been successful so far.

However, this is a double-edged sword. It may also be leading to an element of complacency among the public increasingly encouraged by the small numbers being reported.

This is evident in the steady increase in the amount of road traffic, people enjoying the outdoors and congregating in significant numbers at popular public spaces, and in the hundreds who are missing their appointments for testing to check if their symptoms stem from coronavirus.

The improving situation, however, has led to the government planning the loosening of restrictions, as stated by Chris Fearne yesterday evening.

The price that is being paid for disease prevention is high. People are losing their jobs, businesses are being taken to the limit, depression and stress is being felt by many economic victims or purely as a result of being stuck inside bombarded by worrying news from home and abroad. 

The message from leaders in both the medical and business fields is clear, however: prudence and patience need to continue to be exercised.

We are behind the infection curve of most countries. What has happened in these countries has taken place later in Malta. The government must continue to learn from the experience of these places, from both the positive and the negative.

One such cautionary tale emerges from Asia, where Japan and Singapore, encouraged by relatively low numbers of people infected by the virus, were emboldened to loosen restrictions and are now suffering a consequent exponential spike in new cases. This has prompted them to retract their earlier decisions and impose new restrictions all over again.

Malta will also be keeping a close eye on European countries over the next few weeks to monitor the results of their own exit-strategy experiments, for there is still so much that is unknown about the virus and how it spreads that their actions can only be experimental at this stage.

Two to three weeks more of hardship now may seem difficult. But the medical consensus is that if a country loosens controls too early it risks a surge of cases, the so-called second wave. The process of tracking contacts and shutting down foci of infection would be more difficult and take longer the second time round, especially if the number of people bothering to get swabbed continues to fall, as all new cases would have now been locally generated.

Malta would also need to be cautious about when to open its borders to passenger traffic. Many of the countries we have closest connections to are still in the grip of a major health crisis and are far from COVID free.

We have our own experience of what happens if borders are closed late. If travel restrictions are now lifted too early we would risk a repetition of the imported cases that made up most of the early positive tests.

This is a time for hard decisions that would, however, profit us in the future. The health authorities are being clear: if we let our guard down too early, we risk starting the process over again.

We are going to have to live with some sort of virus measures for some time to come. The costs to the country’s health and economy would be far greater otherwise.