Political egos have turned out to be no match for COVID-19. Declarations of being the best in the world and of having soundly defeated the virus have proven woefully premature, besides immature, in the face of variants that show absolutely no respect for the best -laid plans for economic recovery.

When confronted with perfectly legitimate criticism over his handling of the pandemic, Prime Minister Robert Abela accused the opposition of politicising the issue, when he has all along sought to take political advantage of the lows in COVID statistics.

He is now doing the same with the vaccine, milking the fact that Malta’s rate of administration is well ahead of the rest of Europe’s. That is undoubtedly a feather in the government’s cap. However, the stated reliance on the vaccine as mitigation of the UK variant’s spread did not have time on its side, as shown by the rapidly rising case numbers.

That restrictive measures were not taken at least slightly earlier, when the threat posed by the new variant was already well-known, is not likely down to lack of scientific advice. More probably,  it is due to the prime minister having painted himself into a political corner with his promises of soon-to-come ‘business as usual’.

That overconfidence, combined with lax enforcement, in turn lulled many among the population into complacency about the need to strictly abide by public health guidelines.

So, rather than nipping the UK variant in the bud, the new measures have had to be almost identical to those put in place this time last year. Notable exceptions are that our ports of entry have not been closed to non-essential travel and the vulnerable may venture out.

In some ways, we are in a worse place now. The numbers infected and carrying the virus have soared. The number of patients needing ITU care is far higher. Public fatigue and, therefore, lack of compliance with social distancing, is greater. And health worker fatigue is even deeper.

Apart from being the front-line of the battle against the virus, health workers have borne the brunt of social restrictions as they are even more acutely aware of the dangers of COVID-19 and go into quarantine more often. All were hoping for respite. That hope has been dashed.

At the same time, businesses now are in a worse situation than they were last year. A few folded in 2020 and one hopes that not many will be lost to this second necessary but avoidable shutdown.

Further, public confidence in the management of this crisis is at an all-time low. The glow around our leaders that marked the early days of the pandemic has faded and been replaced by doubt and anger.

One positive is the government’s willingness to dig deep in support of business and jobs.

Another, even more important, is that vaccination is going as fast as possible given the bottleneck created by the flawed EU acquisition programme. As a result, the risk of hospitalisation and death among the elderly is markedly lower. Worryingly, most of those in ITU are a decade or two younger than in the first wave, probably because that cohort has not yet been vaccinated.

This underlines the message that needs to go out to the public. Political accountability cannot be escaped but the main focus right now should be on that last collective pull of the same rope (save for any more nasty variant or vaccine surprises).

Every member of the population, vaccinated or otherwise, must exercise extreme care and caution, going even beyond public health restrictions if necessary, to do their bit to stop the spread of this highly contagious variant from getting any worse.

Lives and livelihoods are on the line.