When will it be safe for us to travel again?
THE safe arrival of the first batch of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines consisting 23,400 doses in Kuching on Wednesday (Feb 24) marked a turning point in our 12month-old fight against the coronavirus. Work to vaccinate 97,161 front-liners in Sarawak started yesterday (Feb 26) and will continue until March 31.
Since Feb 3 this year, a total of 375 volunteers have enrolled for the clinical trial for the Covid-19 vaccine sponsored by the Institute of Molecular Biology of China Academy of Medical Sciences (IMBCAMS) and they have started receiving their doses as well.
March 18, 2021 will mark a full year since we have all been on an on-again off-again lockdown between MCOs and other modified versions thereof, all of which had meant strictly controlled movements within and without the country, as well as within the state. All travel had been curtailed and many international borders have been closed — even those who remained open with restrictions had implemented enforced or self-quarantine lasting an average of 14 days both ways.
Our nearby neighbours Kalimantan, Brunei, and Singapore have almost totally closed their borders. Even for travel within Sarawak, our domestic tourism destinations have mostly come under restrictions, lockdowns, or had been temporarily closed.
Not much effort, financial or other assistance has been forthcoming to lessen the burden and the lack of business that has been experienced by our tourism trade practitioners for the past 12 months. It is indeed a tragedy and a sorry lack of initiative, foresight, and concern for an industry, which as a whole has been instrumental in bringing in the tourist ringgit to the government of the day directly (taxes and duties) and indirectly (untold revenue towards other ancillary industries, products — the ‘invisible trade') for a great many years.
So when will it be safe again to travel?
Initially, and with a lot of caution perhaps to the many local domestic tourist destinations from the western most edge of Sarawak at Tanjung Datu National Park, a pristine coastal reserve with its splendid beaches, idyllic fishing villages and lighthouses; to the most remote highlands of Bario, Ba Kelalan, and the eastern most parts of Mulu, Lawas, and Limbang.
If and when the travel restrictions reduce, these parts will stand to benefit most from the upsurge in the pent-up urge to travel among our locals, who've been cooped up for an entire year and are just longing to get out there — and hopefully the safest destinations to start with will be within our own home ground.
Efforts should be put in place right away, even now as we speak, to spruce up and make even more attractive the numerous beautiful spots, the natural surroundings, our many unique homestays, and myriad niche-themed destinations. Both the potential traveller as well as the tourism purveyor must be aligned towards what they want to see, visit and experience, and what they have to offer to satisfy those mutual needs. Only then can we see both satisfied customers and rewarded entrepreneurship.
You may wonder and ask — will it be safe once a large portion of our local population get vaccinated or when the vaccines go widespread around the globe? How long will that take? Many countries have only just started their vaccination programmes in recent weeks, some just days ago — there will be different levels of efficiency and reach between the rich and poorer countries. Vaccinations too in urban and areas with good transport facilities and vaccination centres will be reached swiftly and expediently — but not those way out rural areas with a lack of proper logistics and health facilities. It will be very unbalanced. It will take time.
Vaccines like the Pfizer ones will need two dosages, while with some like the newly-announced J&J as well as the Chinese SinoVac, just one would suffice. Time and reach will be of the essence and feedback and follow-up will also determine both efficacy and possible negative side-effects, if any. It's still a tedious and complicated process; as even trials on some other announced vaccines are still taking place.
Plainly it will be nigh to impossible to vaccinate every living person on earth, even a figure of say 70 per cent cannot be logistically viable. Therefore there is this effect called herd immunity, which the WHO (World Health Organisation) has described as follows:
“To safely achieve herd immunity against Covid-19, a substantial proportion of a population would need to be vaccinated, lowering the overall amount of virus able to spread in the whole population. The percentage of people who need to be immune in order to achieve herd immunity varies with each disease. For example, herd immunity against measles requires about 95 per cent of a population to be vaccinated. For polio the threshold is about 80 per cent. The figure for Covid-19 is not yet known as of this time.”
On Tuesday (Feb 23), the idea of a Covid-19 Passport for those already vaccinated (and thereby deemed to be in a safer mode in order to travel) was mooted by Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Matta) president Datuk Tan Kok Liang, and was most welcome by all those in the trade and in government.
However such a document needs to be reciprocated with other countries in order for it to work.
Several countries like Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Iceland, and Estonia are already implementing this to reopen international travel into their shores. In Saudi Arabia a Yellow Book certification is being used instead. But will it eventually become the universal standard?
It is of major economic importance for Malaysia that we open our borders and also at the same time allow our citizens to gradually travel abroad.
In 2019 before Covid-19 (which hit us March 2020), our tourism industry was worth RM240.2 billion and had contributed 15.9 per cent to our gross domestic product.
The labour force alone for the tourism industry had numbered 3.6 million.
One just wonders what these 3.6 million who had worked directly in the travel business are doing right now.
Back to my original question — no one I presume has an answer to it — when is it safe to travel again?
However if one is being sensible as well as totally realistic, one can take a somewhat calculated guess.
It can be by the end of this year at the very earliest — if and when at least up to 60 per cent of our country's total population has been vaccinated, provided that travel is initially limited to those other destinations whose infection rates and statistics have either slowed, declined drastically, or in a situation called a travel bubble with reciprocal arrangements for travellers to and from the same stated destinations.
But probably the safest bet would be by this time next year? March 2022?
Let's give it one full year for the first batch of the vaccinated to celebrate their one-year anniversary of having received a vaccine for Covid-19.
However, as of now there are no statistics to state how long the immunity against Covid-19 will last once the vaccine has been administered. We will of course no doubt find out in due time.
But let us not hasten to throw caution to the wind and take flight to distant shores just yet — be patient and stay safe, keep well, and stay home for the time being. When it's safe and the time is right for us to travel, I'm sure we'll be informed.