UK's Freedom Day plans underscore stark choices posed by reality of COVID-19 world

Joining the Dots  is a fortnightly column by author and journalist Samrat in which he connects events to ideas, often through analysis, but occasionally through satire. *** On 19 July, the UK will celebrate “Freedom Day”. A lot of countries around the world celebrate their day of independence from Britain. The British themselves will be celebrating an event no less historic: their day of independence from COVID restrictions. Nightclubs, theatres, music concerts, and live sports events with large crowds will all resume business as usual. One major sporting event, the Euro Cup, is already on across Europe, with large crowds filling stadiums. The finals are scheduled to be held at London’s Wembley Stadium on 11 July, a week before remaining restrictions are lifted. The British reopening is the first on that scale, but plenty of other countries are on the same path. The US, which is among countries that celebrate their independence from British rule, had their latest celebrations on 4 July. Mask-less crowds gathered at public places to enjoy the day watching fireworks and parades or partying. President Joe Biden announced that the country was “closer than ever to declaring independence from a deadly virus”. He had already previously spoken of a “summer of freedom”, and the 4 July celebrations likely marked the unofficial start of that much-awaited summer. In continental Europe, non-essential travel within the European Union bloc and for a select number of countries from outside is on. The list varies from country to country but Israel, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia and Singapore are on the green list of major European countries. Those countries themselves are in various stages of reopening, and one of them is preparing to host a major global event. Japan, a country with a history of vaccine hesitancy and a rigid bureaucracy, has finally got its act together. Although there will be many restrictions in place as it hosts the Olympics, the event will take place. All this points to a couple of things: Firstly, those countries reckon they have managed to get the situation sufficiently under control to take the risk. This is not based on “positive thinking” but on solid healthcare facilities and vaccinations. In the case of UK, more than half the population has received both doses of vaccine, and more than three-fourths have got one. Secondly, there is a growing realisation around the world that the COVID virus cannot be eradicated. It is here to stay, and we will have to learn to live, or die, with it. As the respected journal Foreign Affairs said in its latest edition, “It is time to say it out loud: the virus behind the COVID-19 pandemic is not going away. SARS-CoV2 cannot be eradicated, since it is already growing in more than a dozen different animal species”. The choice before the world is a stark and difficult one. Either we can spend the rest of our lives under house arrest, or we can risk stepping out and opening up, and possibly dying in the bargain. The choice to open up may well be forced upon many of us by economic necessity. A report by Azim Premji University on one year of COVID in India estimated that 230 million Indians had been pushed below the recommended national minimum wage threshold of Rs 375 per day. There is widespread economic distress and the poor are as usual the worst-hit. Indians made the mistake of assuming that we had natural immunity to the virus, and took the end of the first wave to signal the end of the pandemic. Things got worse as the early warnings were suppressed in the quest to airbrush “negative” news and keep up an appearance that all was well. The country had unofficially reopened, with everything from cricket matches to election rallies to the Kumbh Mela going ahead, when the second wave hit in full force. Now, when the rest of the world is trying to move on from the world of COVID restrictions, we find ourselves scared and hesitant, and well behind on vaccinations. A botched vaccination rollout means that despite having the technological wherewithal to produce ample quantities of vaccines, the country faced acute shortages. So far, less than 5 percent of the country’s population has been fully vaccinated. In absolute numbers, this is still a respectable figure, but for a country that is the biggest manufacturer of vaccines in the world, and one that has routinely carried out massive vaccination drives in the past, it is a dismal performance. As a result, our return to normalcy is going to be delayed. While other countries celebrate Euro Cups and Olympics, we will continue to live with runaway inflation and falling incomes while enduring more months of house arrest – and COVID. Countries that have got their act together will gradually open up to travel. This will mainly mean the rich countries of Europe, North America, East Asia, and Australia and New Zealand opening up to one another. Poor countries will be left out of this charmed bubble. We Indian passport holders are likely to join the rest of our “third world” brethren from Asia, Africa and South America among the pariahs who will not easily be allowed into developed countries. The irony is that even the other countries in the same boat as us will hesitate to let us in. The combination of the Delta variant, first found in India, and the horrendous second wave, means that India has become known as a COVID hotspot. This will take time to change. Which politician or bureaucrat would want to sign off on a decision for which they might be blamed later? There are one or two hopeful signs. Germany has moved India from the highest-risk category to the second-highest one. More importantly, the UK, which has the Delta variant like India, is going ahead with its reopening plans. For a return to normalcy, we must now live in the hope that vaccination here is going to proceed rapidly and smoothly, and that Indian vaccination certificates will be recognised by other governments. More importantly, we have to hope that the virus will not mutate to become more deadly. We lived with many diseases, such as malaria, cholera, dengue, encephalitis and so on, even before COVID arrived on the scene. We can carry on with one more virus around, too, so long as it is not lethal for the fully vaccinated. The reopening of the country and its reconnection with the outside world depend on these. Whether we reopen or not, we have to face the fact that our days of life are numbered. If we rush to reopen too soon, we may cut our own lives, and those of others, short. On the other hand, spending the rest of our lives under lockdown and virtual house arrest is not a great option either. At some point, we will have to risk reopening again.