An Odyssey in the Second Year of the Plague – The Maltese Sanction

A map... and a rather good one

Weird a place as it is, I've always had a soft spot for Malta... and so of course does the British government.

The latter says it's now fine for tourists to visit the former.

But hold on... Malta says it's only fine if they can prove they have had two vaccinations. And – here's the rub – the proof has to be in a letter, not on a smartphone. That's a piece of paper! Not some app-based thing.

Not possessing a smartphone, I made sure to take a letter with me to Ithaca this month.

Wouldn't it be rather wonderful if the ubiquity of the smartphone began to fade just a little bit?

We might then see tourists using maps instead of walking around staring at their phones... or looking about them at their surroundings... or even talking to local people to ask them the way.

Congratulations to Malta, which is reported as saying: “From 30 June 2021, all arrivals from the UK need to present proof of full vaccination (two doses). Only the paper version of the NHS Covid vaccination letter, with subject ‘Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination confirmation: two doses received’, will be accepted, not the digital app version, nor a printout from the digital app.”