Time to end lockdowns

THE EDITOR: Leaders who have properly planned for and implemented measures to drive the recovery of their citizens and economies ravaged by covid19 should no longer be resorting to nor continuing to enforce total lockdowns.

Lockdowns were a means of forced control used to manage the spread of the virus when the pandemic was still new and where there was much uncertainty and fear among populations. In that environment it was understandable, but in the year since WHO officially declared the covid19 pandemic, many things have changed.

The fact is that people are much more educated about the coronavirus, and now know very clearly what they need to do to control its spread. We have to understand that any virus with such high communicability is always going to result in some people getting sick – the key is that those people do not end up in hospital or in intensive care.

In other words, we need to become much more discerning with the figures. We cannot just look at 100 new cases as an absolute; we need to examine how many of those people need emergency care, because that ultimately is what leads to death and what creates the pressure on our health systems.

Effective leaders are those that put in the work that would allow them to find strategies that would guide the reopening of industry, of hospitality and, very importantly, of movement of people or travel. On the other hand, lazy leaders or those who prefer to take the easy way out will continue to maintain blanket lockdowns and forced control measures.

The consequences of that will be devastating not just for economies, but ultimately people’s mental health and the stability of society.

The world took a major step in the fight against covid19 in early 2021 with the creation and administering of vaccines. We were all aware that the vaccines were coming and the proactive governments and leaders would have taken the necessary steps to ensure a proper rollout. It is understandable that supply issues would impact this process. However, it is unfortunate that some governments simply did not plan properly to acquire and distribute the vaccines. Those countries are being left behind.

With greater enlightenment among populations and now armed with the vaccines, one of the critical areas that needs to be looked at is the resumption of travel. We cannot continue to approach this issue with fear and trepidation. This is even more important in the Caribbean, which is considered the most tourism-dependent region in the world.

What that means is that the livelihoods of everyone – whether they care to admit it or not – is intrinsically linked with travel and tourism. I would think by now that proactive regional leaders would be looking at amending travel protocols to take into account the dynamics of the vaccine environment.

It may be argued that we are still learning about the full efficacy of the vaccines, and while caution is always a good thing, paralysis or the failure to act is something else.

The only way to eliminate the problems we face is to deal with them. We have to make our problems go away.

We have already lost one year because of covid19. Not only have we have lost lives, we have lost jobs, we have lost income and savings, we have lost the chance to say goodbye to family and friends who have died, we have lost the ability to interact and touch, which makes us human. Some people have quite literally lost their minds as we have seen an uptick in mental issues. We have lost so much.

Are we going to just sit around waiting to lose more? Is our only plan to try and wait out the virus? That’s no plan at all. Covid19 isn’t going anywhere.

Once we face that reality then we will understand that to defeat it we need to face it. No more hiding with our heads in the sand.

The military teaches that in every battle, success depends on a proactive mindset. Those who follow history will know that what is described as the greatest disgrace ever dealt to American arms – the War of 1812 when the British eliminated the American forces at Maryland – happened because secretary of war John Armstrong failed to act and deploy much needed militia to the area. The result was that Washington DC was burnt to the ground.

In the current environment, lockdowns are a type of negative action that can be akin to inaction, the consequences of which can be dire, as we see above.

Time for our leaders to show their mettle, time for them to rise up and time for them to lead an informed, smart and united counter-offensive. Those that do will survive. Those that do not...

F SOLOMON

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