Gozo needs its own equipment to analyse COVID-19 tests as well as a contact tracing team focused solely on the island, Nationalist Party MP Chris Said has argued.

Said said that Gozitans are currently waiting for more than two days to receive results of their swab tests, with contact tracing efforts also lagging behind.

“A year has passed since the beginning of the pandemic, and the government was unable to invest or force [Gozo hospital operators] Steward to invest in an RT-PCR machine for Gozo,” he said.

“We have lost all control over how contact tracing is being done and there are those who are contacted a week later after having come into contact with a positive person.”

In a statement issued on Saturday, the Gozitan PN MP said that the islanders were being penalised by the government’s “irresponsibility and incompetence” in its handling of the pandemic.

The PN MP said that although the government has said that only essential travel to and from Gozo will be permitted for now, in reality there were few checks at ferry crossing points in Ċirkewwa and Mġarr, Gozo, apart from temperature checks.   

The statement said that despite assurances to the contrary, a number of Gozitan elderly, vulnerable or frontliners have received calls to get the vaccine in Malta. 

“This is not acceptable all the more so when the Government in recent days has boasted that it has opened a large vaccination centre in Victoria Gozo and vaccinations began a few weeks ago and assured that all Gozitans will be vaccinated in Gozo.”

Last month Said had blasted the “unacceptable” practice of asking vulnerable Gozitans and frontliners to get vaccinated in Malta.

After his outcry, Superintendent of Public Health Charmaine Gauci said that any Gozitans classified as vulnerable would be receiving their appointments in Gozo.