Government still mute on selection process for quarantine hotels

While the Maltese government continues to ignore requests for information about its scheme to use approved isolation hotels for tourists who arrive in Malta without the necessary COVID documentation, the Corinthia Group said today that its Marina San Gorg hotel has been operating as a quarantine hotel since 1 June.

The government has provided no information about which hotels have been selected to serve as quarantine facilities, how many there are, how they were chosen and what the cost to the taxpayer will be. Questions sent to the health ministry on 2 June have been ignored.

The 200-room Corinthia San Gorg’s entire accommodation availability has been blocked off for the whole of June, July, August and September, after having been shut due to pandemic restrictions since March 2020.

Tourists are required to present a vaccine certification or a negative PCR test result taken not earlier than 72 hours before arrival in Malta. If not, they are required to quarantine as they wait for the result of a PCR test and will have to pay €120 euros for the test, and €100 per person per night for the room-only lodging.

The restricted guests will be confined to their rooms, and food, drink and anything else they need will have to be paid for separately.

Figures presented last week show that some 5% of travellers to Malta had to be tested on arrival. Nine new COVID-19 cases were detected overnight, the health authorities announced over the weekend, quickly followed by a tweet from the Health Minister on Tuesday saying the country had not registered any new COVID cases the previous day.

Malta has registered a total of 30,572 covid cases and 419 related deaths since the start of the pandemic. Some 70% of the population has had at least one vaccination dose and active coronavirus cases have dropped to under 100 for several weeks, as the island begins to ease the restrictions put in place through winter and spring.