Extraordinary Measures – What’s Your Take?
Extraordinary measures are being taken with more in the pipeline of proposals for the Covid 19 Pandemic. Before 2020 travellers arriving the UK from malaria-infested regions were quarantined if they exhibited symptoms of malaria. This is a reflection that malaria was not an illness expected in the UK. None was compelled to have tests on arrival that there was no malaria parasite in their blood.
In the 19th Century, malaria was incurable. Many a Christian Missionary to these malaria-infested areas died as a result of contracting malaria. There was no cure. Catching malaria was a death sentence. This did not stop European missionaries from journeying to the malaria infested regions of sub Saharan Africa or South East Asia.
Burden of responsibility
Public Health regulations have put the decision making on movements in the wake of Covid19 on the State. All earlier restriction of movements with respect to infectious diseases were left to the individual.
Response to Covid 19 has been one of extraordinary measures. Vaccine passports are being implemented in the EU. The precedent for those are the vaccination cards long required for travel from yellow fever prone areas. This is despite protests on civil liberty grounds.
Social distancing requirements have led to extensive streetscape modifications in the UK. This is mainly seen in metropolitan areas with wider spaces for cyclists and pedestrians. These are often at the expense of vehicular traffic. In London, many side street entrances have been restricted to cars and vans.
The pandemic has reshaped the way we work in extraordinary ways. It has improved work/life balance with families spending more time together. The stresses of this rapid change have affected people in different ways. Domestic violence cases are reported to have gone up on pre-pandemic levels. Homeworking is now acceptable with a larger number of employers.
Media War
Supporters of these extraordinary measures often imply opponents are either religious fanatics or extremely selfish. I recently heard someone on the radio refer to his Mum as feeling she was appointed of God and could not be reasoned with on this issue. He labelled it “God-complex”
There definitely is a long media war on measures proposed or introduced in dealing with the Covid19 saga.
The French government recently used the big stick of coercion in mandating the use of vaccination. Free testing were to be withdrawn and vaccine passports required for access to essential services and places of large communal contacts. Predictably there was a surge in vaccination uptake also accompanied with large scale protests.
Inconsistencies in the statistics also fuel skepticism about mainstream reporting. For instance, Statistics from National Audit Office do not reflect an increase in the total number of deaths that would have been expected from the reported Covid19 deaths.
A number of countries are either in lockdown mode or heading towards it. Israel among other nations is looking to introduce vaccination passports many opponents across the world have been fighting.
The UK government has carried out one of the most effective vaccination programmes. It has shifted the emphasis of measures in dealing with the pandemic. Recently, the government lifted most of the restrictions on social activities.
Travel response
The New Health Secretary places personal responsibility as paramount in the handling of risk of infections. The reasoning for this is the high take up of vaccination.
The vaccines war has another dimension to it. Large quantities of the AstraZeneca vaccine were manufactured in India. A significantly large amount of the vaccines available in Africa and South East Asia are of this variety. Yet, France and some other European countries do not recognise this as providing effective protection.
These European countries have imposed measures that discriminate against those who have received the double jabs of this vaccine. These include not allowing those who have received these jabs to visit their country. This is further complicated by a large number of the UK vaccination being of the AstraZeneca vaccine. It’s challenging to determine which ones were made in India and the justification for the discrimination.
Monitoring
The track and trace system also has impacted productivity with significantly large numbers of people in essential roles being forced to self-isolate for coming in contact with those testing positive for Covid19.
We shall delve more on this later…
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