Valletta, Friday 19 February 2021
MEIA calls on the authorities for a managed COVID exit plan. The Malta Entertainment Industry and Arts Association, representing more than 1,700 people working in the Arts and Entertainment, is calling upon the authorities to take action for the immediate publication of a COVID Exit Plan to avoid further devastation caused by the pandemic.
MEIA is concerned that the current situation is often leading to crisis management, leading to con icting messages by different public entities and economic hardship to the industry. Industry professionals in the arts and entertainment are unable to plan ahead and address the challenges of the current situation which will probably take longer than anticipated with long-term effects on all sectors. MEIA is calling for a 12-month managed exit plan starting from March 2021, identifying the different scenarios and the respective mitigation measures required for each scenario according to the protocols established by the Health department. The one-year exit plan needs to identify ways in which the arts and entertainment industries can operate with suf cient information to design and plan events for the different measures. Other countries have successfully introduced measures that allowed the arts and entertainment industries to phase-in different event planning measures, some also leading to mass gathering events without registering any COVID 19 infections. The president of MEIA added that “We are well aware that mass gatherings with thousands of people might not be realistic for this summer. We can still hopefully look at small scale options, may it be with certi cation of vaccinations, sustainable models with different mitigation measures or strict border controls due to the new variants, if we have a well-managed exit plan to facilitate such planning.”
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MEIA understands that the fast-changing conditions of the pandemic requires signi cant exibility to ensure that health remains a priority. However, we rmly believe that scenario building can be simulated and communicated effectively to reassure arts and entertainment professionals that our sectors can restart through such exit plan built on existing data, research and industr expertise ——————————— The End ———————————