VALLETTA, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Maltese Prime Minister Robert Abela has defended his government's decision to relax coronavirus measures, including reopening the tourism sector, which was believed to be behind recent coronavirus resurgence.
Malta had not lost control of the situation, as was being claimed by critics, but the new outbreaks had to be countered with clinical decisions, Abela said in an interview broadcast on Sunday by One channel, a television station owned by One Productions, his Labor Party's media arm.
"We have had an increase in infection but not an increase in the number of critically ill people and we have managed to keep the rate of deaths low," Abela said.
"We must not ignore the numbers. We must reduce the infection rate through clinical measures," he insisted.
Malta's Health Ministry announced 63 new COVID-19 cases detected in the latest round of testing of 2,142 swabs taken in 24 hours.
According to the Health Ministry, Malta has 548 active COVID-19 cases and has registered a total of 1,306 cases since the first confirmed case on March 7. The country has registered nine COVID-19 deaths. So far, almost 157,000 tests have been carried out.
The strict social distancing measures put in place by the authorities had led to very low numbers. On July 17, the number of active cases went down to just three.
However, following the opening of the airport and ports in mid-July, the numbers started to rise again.
In the interview, Abela defended Tourism Minister Julia Farrugia Portelli from calls for her resignation, saying she, and the government, had been acting in line with the directives of the health authorities and Malta could not close attractions that drew tourists, reported the English-language daily newspaper Times of Malta.
On mass events, Abela said 45 had suffered from COVID-19 as a result of mass events -- the hotel party and the Sta Venera band march -- and the patients had recovered. Therefore the perception that these two activities created today's numbers "are mistaken."
"Not everything was done perfectly but we had the disadvantage of acting in a situation where leaders all over the world had no manuals to go by," he added. Enditem
