#BTEditorial – Risking in the hope of reward

Seeking to get our economy back on track and the livelihoods of Barbadians repaired after nearly 20 months of battering will require some risk. The critical question is: what is the risk tolerance level of the population?

There is an argument that the administration seems prepared to take a calculated gamble, relying on the growing vaccination rate among citizens and residents, as one of the anchors of its aggressive response to the disease and its build back better policy stance.

With more than 132 000 people who have had at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, Government is pushing ahead with its plans to grab as much of the tourism business it has been losing out on for almost two years when the emphasis was shifted to treatment, testing and contact tracing.

“We are not out of the woods still. The people who have taken the first jab are likely to take the second as well and we’ve reached two out of three Barbadians who are eligible to be vaccinated doing so.

“But we still want to reach 75 per cent of the population having at least the first shot. But we now have the average person who has had COVID-19 saying they also want to get vaccinated,” the Prime Minister disclosed during her live address to the country over the weekend.

The increased vaccination rate can be attributed to the growing seriousness with which the population is taking the viral illness which is claiming an average of three lives each day.

The debate, however, resides in our ability to achieve a vaccination rate at a pace that will spare the general population from the worst effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as thousands of visitors are expected to descend on our shores over the next couple of months.

Will we have enough Barbadians immunized by December 15 at the official start to the winter tourist season when the Brits and other Europeans head south for relief from the bitter cold?

There is little doubt that our economy is under severe strictures. Many micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises are struggling or have closed their doors. And a significantly improved tourist season is the kind of shot in the arm the country desperately needs.

Of course, there are some political considerations. For even during a pandemic, political parties will not lose sight of the desire to remain or attain power, for little can be achieved outside the halls of power.

The administration must surely want to position itself to say that it has done more than simply respond to the pandemic. It will want to tout its ability to return the country to stability after one of the worst crises in a century.

There is high unemployment and so jobs must be created. Despite the immeasurable and pervasive disruptions caused by the disease, the administration will still be expected to at least show it turned the ship of state around, reversing the significant economic hardship occasioned by high unemployment levels, especially among women and young people.

It is expected that seeking to manage the COVID-19 crisis is priority No. 1 and therefore “learning to live with COVID” has become the new mantra.

In our efforts to shift the emphasis to the preservation of livelihoods, we ought to pay close attention to what is occurring on the global scene. The challenge with this disease is our ability to predict what course it is likely to take.

COVID-19 fatigue has become intense. Millions of people around the globe who had hoped that COVID vaccines would allow them to interact, socialise, and travel as they did prior to late 2019, have become jaded.

To add to the trauma of the long-running pandemic are reports in the United States, Great Britain, and many parts of Europe where coronavirus infections are rising rapidly and so are fears of a third and fourth wave of the disease.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is now warning that Europe is again becoming the epicentre of the disease and the blame is falling on those who refuse to be vaccinated.

Hans Kluge, the WHO’s chief for Europe said this week in a report by the BBC, “We must change our tactics, from reacting to surges of COVID-19 to preventing them from happening in the first place.”

The rate of vaccination has slowed across the continent in recent months, with 80 per cent of people in Spain fully vaccinated, while in Germany it is as low as 66 per cent, and far lower in some Eastern European countries.

What was instructive was Kluge’s assertion that relaxation of public health measures was to blame for rising infections in Europe.