Glimpse into ‘new’ future

Let me introduce you to the future: It’s Friday afternoon and I’m flying to South Africa via Frankfurt. I get to the airport with my mandatory Covid test performed less than 72 hours ago, as per SA regulations. I have fi lled in the necessary forms online.

However, literally overnight Germany has introduced new restrictions: anyone flying into a German airport, even just passing through, must have had a Covid test no more than 48 hours beforehand.

Mine is from 52 hours ago, four hours too old.

“If we let you fly, they’ll turn you around and send you straight back,” I’m told.

Good luck with that, I say: there are no more flights back this evening, so they can either lock me up or send me onwards to Johannesburg.

Still I’m refused check-in, as are many other people around me.

But as it’s impossible to get a test done in less than 24 hours, perhaps such radical overnight rulings need a day or two to be enacted.

The harried staff make more phone calls, and finally I’m allowed on board.

However, when I get off the plane at Frankfurt a gang of airport police await at the top of the gangway, checking test results. My bravado wavers.

I’m pulled aside by a blond man in a black uniform because my paperwork isn’t correct. A supervisor is called. Thankfully he decides I can go since I’m flying onwards soon.

Never has an onboard glass of bubbly felt so celebratory…

And now here I am, back in my home country where the vaccination programme hasn’t even started yet, where plans are at best nebulous, where too many think the Covid threat is overstated, and say they will refuse a vaccination.

Well, sorry if you’re one of these 30-something percent refuseniks – as is your right – because you’re going to need proof of inoculation if you want to live a “normal” life again in any way.

If we want to, say, go to a football match or a gig or even church, or attend university, or eat in a restaurant, or visit another country – without being stopped by German police! – we’ll likely have to produce a Covid card.

The future is now: we’re going to need the right paperwork.