Maltese authorities have issued a temporary ban on all air and sea travel to and from France, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain due to the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, the Malta Today newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing Prime Minister Robert Abela
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th March, 2020) Maltese authorities have issued a temporary ban on all air and sea travel to and from France, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain due to the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, the Malta Today newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing Prime Minister Robert Abela.
Any individual who returned to the country from any of the four aforementioned nations must enter self-isolation for 14 days, the media said.
The decision to ban travel to and from the four nations reflects the rapidly rising number of confirmed cases there, the newspaper reported. On Monday, all direct flights between Malta and Italy, the epicenter of the outbreak in Europe, were canceled as well.
All Maltese citizens currently in France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, and Italy will be repatriated to Malta and placed in quarantine, with the government currently establishing a service to deliver food and other basic necessities to those in self-isolation, the newspaper reported. Abela also announced that anyone who breaks the quarantine regulations will face a fine of up to 1,000 Euros ($1,127), according to the newspaper.
"If the people cooperate and shoulder their responsibility, we will be able to emerge from these circumstances quicker," the prime minister said during a press conference on Wednesday, as quoted by the newspaper.
Malta's Health Ministry confirmed the country's sixth case of COVID-19, a doctor who had been on holiday in northern Italy, earlier in the day. According to the newspaper, the doctor had returned to Malta on Sunday and immediately placed himself in self-isolation, meaning that he had no contact with hospital patients.
All of the six confirmed COVID-19 cases in Malta can be traced to Italy, the newspaper reported earlier in the day.
