Tiptoeing back

THE WORLD is tiptoeing to easing covid19 restrictions, though there’s hardly any consensus on exactly how and to what extent they should be lifted. Locally, our data suggests the situation has reached a plateau. That alone should tell us we need to adopt a gradual, staggered approach to how we reactivate the economy.

When the time comes, lifting the lockdown must not involve a free-for-all. On the contrary, the new normal will have to be a mixed bag of relaxed measures countered by even stricter enforcement of things that we should have been doing.

According to officials at yesterday’s daily covid19 briefing, the range of hygiene strategies adopted has been commensurate with a fall in cases of diseases that would have spread otherwise due to person-to-person contact, such as gastroenteritis.

While it is possible this fall is due to reluctance on the part of the population to come forward for medical treatment in the present climate, it is nonetheless equally possible that the decline is causally linked to the very stringent measures which have been drilled into the population. Wear masks, wash your hands, stand two metres apart, do not touch your face, clean your surfaces regularly – these are things which would in the natural course of things reduce transmission of diseases generally.

As the Government prepares to receive the recommendations of the Cabinet committee mandated to make recommendations on the road to recovery post-covid19, it is worth contemplating how the changed environment will require these uncontroversial behavioural changes to remain in place. Before covid19, washing your hands regularly was always something people should have done. Now, after covid19, washing your hands, wearing masks and so on should be compulsory.

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh has stated the question of legislative intervention is a matter for the counsel of the Ministry of the Attorney General. But as a matter of public health policy alone, it is clear that once the door is opened to people returning to work and resuming business, it cannot be left to moral suasion alone to protect the interests of citizens.

In other words, the ending of the lockdown should not mark the ending of firm intervention on the part of authorities. Given the collapse seen in some countries where lockdown measures have been lifted (one need only cite the chaotic scenes in some US states this weekend where social distancing was not clearly observed, as well as our own crowds outside the Living Water Community premises), the State will have to temper the granting of relief with a strong battery of measures.

In an ideal world, officials should be able to appeal to the commonsense of the population. What should by now be second nature – whether because it is a part of basic hygiene or due to the pandemic – will have to become law.