I binge watched The Queen’s Gambit over the holidays and, although I am not a chess player, it did something to me. In the evenings, as I lay on my pillow, I’d look at the ceiling with big almond eyes (poetic licence) and there, before me, I’d see the whole Coronavirus vs Malta game unfold in 3D. And, every evening, I’d realise that what should have been a straightforward checkmate for Malta was turning out to be a veritable stalemate. 

Let’s take a look at the state of play. Malta has a population of, give or take, half a million. The long-awaited vaccine arrived on our shores on December 26 with much pomp and fanfare – vide the government’s spin video called “Malta tinsab lesta!” full of slow-motion close-ups of freezers opening up to welcome the needles.

Also welcoming them were Prime Minister Robert Abela and Health Minister Chris Fearne who both struck a Bortex catalogue model pose next to the vaccine boxes as soon as these landed in Malta.

Those catwalk poses became frequent. Abela and Fearne flicked their heads, twisted their waists and put best foot forward as they photobombed the Maltese frontliner who first got the jab and, then again, when the first Gozitan nurse was inoculated. This dog-and-pony show marked the roll out of the jab programme. The prime minister said we’ve “almost defeated COVID” (he had already said that in Lockdown: Season 1) and the health minister assured us the nightmare will be over by summer.

But when you look at the chessboard, you realise that either they’re playing on impulse or they’re following spin advice from the Office of Joseph Muscat. They are ignoring a crucial detail: all of us must be inoculated for anyone to declare a win.

They could do worse than look at Israel, which has a population of nine million, of whom more than a million has been vaccinated. The Israelis are inoculating more than 150,000 people a day, with priority given to the over-60s, health workers and clinically vulnerable people. Which means that, every three days, they are covering the equivalent of the whole population of Malta.

In roughly the same time that Israel inoculated 10 per cent of its population, Malta had only given the jab to 0.3 per cent of its people.

The problem is not supply; those freezers we saw in the spin video are full of vaccines. But, clearly, whoever is in charge of the jab administration strategy is terribly bad at maths. The plan is to give only 5,000 vaccinations per week, which an alarmed doctor’s union calculated would take three years to inoculate all the Maltese population. For proper herd immunity, by this summer and not that of 2024, the aim should be 5,000 jabs per day not per week.

There is also another problem. Abela and Fearne are being ostriches refusing to acknowledge the vibe out there: most people are not keen to take this jab.

People are very sceptical. Back in March, we were told that it would take 10 years for a vaccine to be declared safe and now – wham! – it’s here after only 10 months. And no one is giving us informed reassurance that it’s perfectly safe.

We need to know: has it been tested enough? What’s the difference between the Pfizer, the Moderna and Oxford jabs? Can we choose which ones to take? What are the side effects of each one? Can we still get COVID if we take the jab?

Fearne, who is a doctor himself, should be out there on all media platforms talking non-stop about this. Also, as a doctor, he is eligible for the vaccine and, in fact, had told LovinMalta that he would be the first to take it to show how safe it is. So, what is he bloody waiting for?

Abela and Fearne are being ostriches refusing to acknowledge the vibe out there- Kristina Chetcuti

And why is he not telling us how stretched our frontliners are? And how COVID patients have taken over most wards. And how former COVID patients are now returning to Mater Dei Hospital with long-term horrifying complications, as a result of the virus.

Trying to pretend that all is normal will not make people want to queue to get injected. Perhaps it’s time for Fearne to stand up to the prime minister’s clueless gambits and start moving the pawns for the benefit of the country.

Prancing around declaring victory or dishing out a plethora of vouchers will not kick-start the economy. It is only the vaccine and eventual herd immunity that will finally enable us, with a sigh of relief (and not with fanfare), to claim checkmate.

So long, Becs

Journalists’ offspring tend to be as highly opinionated as their parents, so when, back in 2015, the newsroom was working on a feature about what children would do if they were prime minister for a day, we had all brought our children to the office for the day. Of course, none were short of ideas when I set out to interview them.

One of my young interviewees then was nine-year-old Rebecca Zammit Lupi. Soft-spoken but assertive, she spoke of how she wanted to travel the world and be a photographer, like her father. If she were prime minister, she said, she would absolutely ban smoking.

It turned out to be one of the features I most enjoyed writing. And I treasure it even more now that Rebecca – Becs – has gone on a journey… albeit a different one to her plans. She is soaring high in the heavens, watching over her parents, Marisa and Darrin, through her brilliant photographic eye. 

Definitely, her spirit will forever be etched in our hearts

krischetcuti@gmail.com
twitter: @krischetcuti