Festival-mad Malta is ‘parallel universe’ as COVID-19 panic rises again

“In a parallel universe, festival season is in full swing...” 

That’s the hook for a BBC report on Malta’s COVID-19 summer, which has four music festivals planned over the next months despite social distancing measures in place in most establishments. 

With fantastic line-ups that include British acts like Chase and Status, Aitch, AJ Tracey and Fatboy Slim, the festivals are targeting young British tourists thanks to the UK government’s green light travel list. Rhythm + Waves, Escape 2 the Island, the BPM Festival and Mi Casa are all being advertised online. Another festival on the island, Back to the Future, was cancelled due to low ticket sales. 

But Malta already has 708 coronavirus cases and multiple warnings from doctors bodies have called on government to disallow mass gatherings. 

The Malta College of Pathologists was alarmed by a recent cluster of COVID-19 cases linked to a mass entertainment gathering that signalled a spike in cases after days of almost zero coronavirus cases in Malta. 

“Anyone who believes that the challenge from this virus is over, shows a disregard to history and obliviousness to the fundamental principles of infectious disease transmission. Just because we have thankfully experienced numerous days with no positive cases, does not in any way infer that the virus is defeated. Like all similar respiratory viruses, it is simply lying low… waiting for the right conditions to rear its frightening head; as last week’s event clearly proves,” said vice-president Rodianne Abela.  

The company running the festivals told the BBC that Malta residents were happy to welcome British people. “Tourism plays a very important role in our economy,” said Nicky Spiteri, who runs 365 Entertainment. “Hotels, restaurants, taxi drivers and clubs are welcoming these festivals – it can save their season.” 

Spiteri said he was working with the government to bring in a number of safety measures – like temperature checks on arrival, sanitisation stations and steps to keep two metre social distancing at all times. “Uno [one of the festival venues] has a capacity of 8,000 but we’re going to have a field adjacent to it, which can take up to 20,000 people with chill out areas and food areas – so basically a capacity space of 28,000 for 9,000 ticketholders.” 

He says there will be about five or six stages per event to make sure people are well spaced out too. 

The doctors’ union has joined the call for mass events to be halted, after Malta experiences a spike in the number of COVID-19 cases. The Medical Association of Malta is appealing to the government to stop, with immediate effect, all mass gatherings, following the two alarming coronavirus clusters reported on Sunday. “MAM fears that we may have not seen the worst yet,” the union warned. 

One DJ who attempted to placate mass fears of COVID-19 infection in mass gatherings had his own opinion on the matter but was slammed by social media commenters. Joven Grech, known as DJ Tenishia, said that unnecessary panic and scaremongering has particularly detrimental effects on the entertainment industry. 

“Parties are being used intentionally to hype up older people who already have very bad mentalities about these kind of events to talk and panic,” he said on Facebook. 

He still emphasised that health and safety should be the top priority when organising such events and suggested that organisers should scan the ID cards of all event attendees so that information will be ready at hand if a COVID-19 case is found. “While hoping the intentional pressure won’t affect the government’s decisions, if the government says no then everyone should follow that order,” he concluded.

The Labour MEP Alfred Sant also chipped in on Facebook, saying he could not consider “mass” parties as a good idea. 

“I understand the enormous problems faced by hoteliers. I don’t think these are problems that will be resolved in the short-term. Indeed they will take long to be resolved. From where will hoteliers make money to keep their establishments ‘alive’ when they are near empty? Arguably, no initiative that can bring extra cash can be ignored. But I don’t think such ‘mass’ parties are a good idea. The hit to the hotel’s reputation and Maltese tourism can be massive.”