Last year there was no vaccine and still no new cases were reported

Blog post by Marica Micallef

The local media has been lately reporting zero Covid cases and that active cases are decreasing in number too.

Times of Malta has reported that “Health authorities detected no new COVID-19 cases for the third time this week on Saturday, with the number of active virus cases falling to 29 after three patients recovered overnight”. The same news portal reported that this “was the third time this week and fourth time in the past seven days that no new virus cases were recorded” and that this “positive news was broken by deputy prime minister Chris Fearne earlier on Saturday.”

The same article keeps on emphasising that 80% of the Maltese population has been vaccinated against Covid19 and that now, vaccinations are open for those who are aged 16 and over. Needless to say, this emphasis points to the fact that the zero Covid cases are thanks to the vaccination program that our Health Authorities keep on continuously boasting about. The ultimate message is “Vaccines work. Vaccines have worked and done the trick”.

So, can the Health Authorities explain to the general public how come, during this month last year, exactly on June 27th, 2020, the same news portal reported that Malta had zero new Covid cases for the fourth time in a week, in a period where vaccines were still not being administered? In an article by the Times of Malta of June 2020 entitled “Zero new COVID-19 cases for fourth time in a week”, the news portal reported that “No coronavirus cases were identified between Friday and Saturday from 870 tests carried out, data released by the Health Ministry shows. It is the fourth time in the past six days that zero new COVID-19 cases were detected, following a three-day streak with no new cases earlier this week. Three further patients recovered, bringing the number of active coronavirus cases in the country down to 26.”

Aren’t we witnessing the same pattern, with or without the vaccines? Why do active cases go down at the start of summer? Doesn’t this mean that without the vaccines, and at a period where we were not wearing masks outside, unlike this time, we can still have a curbing down of the pandemic? Doesn’t this mean that the vaccines were useless?

If cases start going up like we witnessed last year, who or what will the authorities blame? Since the vaccines were marketed as the only solution and the “cure”, we should not be expecting cases to go up, should we? And our local media, should not be even reporting anymore about coronavirus new cases, since these should be now a thing of the past, with herd immunity. Or is it not?