New Covid-19 variant

The United Kingdom has been isolated by the neighbouring European countries as well as a lot of others in other continents. Reason? A highly infectious strain of the Covid-19 coronavirus has been detected in the UK. Pakistan has joined the burgeoning list of countries that have placed restrictions on travellers from the kingdom. Flights from Britain have already been suspended by several European and Middle Eastern countries, as well as Canada, India and Hong Kong. The French even closed their border for goods trucks, meaning that supply shortages of some products may well be on the horizon. Meanwhile, even Northern Ireland — a component country of the UK — is mulling closing the internal border with the rest of Britain.

That makes it unsurprising that Pakistan’s National Command and Operation Centre placed a week-long temporary restriction starting Wednesday. The restriction, which is extendable in terms of duration, will apply to everyone that has been in the UK during the 10 days before travel. Exemptions will be made for transit passengers who never leave their UK airports as well as Pakistani passport holders in the UK on tourist visas. However, they will have to meet some basic requirements such as Covid-19 tests before and after travel. They will also have to quarantine for one week on arrival in Pakistan and follow our test and trace policies.

Even though experts across the world have reassured that the new strain does not appear to be deadlier or more vaccine-resistant than the more widespread one, the fact that it is more contagious is enough justification for the abundance of prudence being shown. For instance, in South East England the modeling data suggests that the number of infections have increased from 100 cases per 100,000 in early October to 400 cases per 100,000 in December. The new strain has also been detected in other European countries like Denmark and the Netherlands, and as far away as Australia and South Africa.

While some Britons may complain about their travel plans — specially related to the approaching Christmas and New Year — their domestic leadership is not really helping matters. Bogged down by his failure to get a favourable Brexit deal, which was essentially the only thing that got Prime Minister Boris Johnson elected, his administration is struggling to keep their stories straight. As Prime Minister Johnson tried to urge caution and responsibility, Health Secretary Matt Hancock was essentially saying the world is on fire. Okay, what he did say was, “The new variant is out of control,” but that does not sound much better.

It also doesn’t help that UK authorities have apparently known about the new strain since September but started openly talking about it only last week. In the meantime, Prime Minister Johnson, despite knowing of the new strain, was announcing relaxations of the UK’s lockdown policies ahead of Christmas. And while those relaxations have since been withdrawn, it is still not a good look when some in his government are still trying to accuse China of covering up the spread of the original strain.

Pakistan, meanwhile, has done a good swift job by coming up with UK-specific restrictions. But the authorities here must also make sure the restrictions are strictly followed. There must be no complacency and no casual handling of the potentially emerging situation.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 23^rd, 2020.

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