The timely need is to realise the need for reining in our raging urge to heedlessly travel

Amid growing global concerns over the new COVID variant, a lot of heat and dust seems to be gathering intensity over India’s political horizon, too. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi, stressing the need to be proactive in the wake of this scary development, has already directed the Government officials to review the stated plans for easing of international flight restrictions in the light of “emerging new evidence” against Omicron, labelled by the WHO as a “variant of concern”, there are others politicians who are also exploiting this opportunity to add to their political muscle, especially ahead of the Assembly elections in five States early next year. While the Prime Minister’s directive to the officials came a day after the Ministry of Civil Aviation announced the resumption of scheduled international flights beginning December 15 (after nearly 20 months of the Coronavirus-induced suspension), the Opposition leaders — like Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party’s national convener Arvind Kejriwal — have upped the game by urging Modi to stop the flights coming into India, especially from those countries which are in the grip of the new variant of the Coronavirus infection.

In what can only be termed a political statement, Kejriwal sought to pitch the nation’s people against the ruling party at the Centre when he said that India had “recovered” “with immediate effect” from the COVID-19 pandemic “with great difficulty”. Of course, it must be underlined that the new variant, feared to have a high potential for another spike in mutations as unseen ever before, was detected in a handful of South African nations. In view of this breakout, a number of countries, including the European Union, have already suspended travel to the affected regions. In this light, there’s an understated but expedient and dire need for the nation’s people to be more cautious in following COVID-appropriate measures like masking up, maintaining personal hygiene and social distancing, besides ditching vaccine hesitancy and going for the double-dose inoculation. It can’t be stressed enough that people, especially the young and frequent travellers, need to understand that this is not the time to be complacent or engage in any false sense of security. We, all of us, must understand that we need to stand united in the face of this looming new threat to the world’s health and do everything in our control, and a bit more, to defeat this pernicious virus.

(Courtesy; The Pioneer)

The timely need is to realise the need for reining in our raging urge to heedlessly travel

Amid growing global concerns over the new COVID variant, a lot of heat and dust seems to be gathering intensity over India’s political horizon, too. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi, stressing the need to be proactive in the wake of this scary development, has already directed the Government officials to review the stated plans for easing of international flight restrictions in the light of “emerging new evidence” against Omicron, labelled by the WHO as a “variant of concern”, there are others politicians who are also exploiting this opportunity to add to their political muscle, especially ahead of the Assembly elections in five States early next year. While the Prime Minister’s directive to the officials came a day after the Ministry of Civil Aviation announced the resumption of scheduled international flights beginning December 15 (after nearly 20 months of the Coronavirus-induced suspension), the Opposition leaders — like Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party’s national convener Arvind Kejriwal — have upped the game by urging Modi to stop the flights coming into India, especially from those countries which are in the grip of the new variant of the Coronavirus infection.

In what can only be termed a political statement, Kejriwal sought to pitch the nation’s people against the ruling party at the Centre when he said that India had “recovered” “with immediate effect” from the COVID-19 pandemic “with great difficulty”. Of course, it must be underlined that the new variant, feared to have a high potential for another spike in mutations as unseen ever before, was detected in a handful of South African nations. In view of this breakout, a number of countries, including the European Union, have already suspended travel to the affected regions. In this light, there’s an understated but expedient and dire need for the nation’s people to be more cautious in following COVID-appropriate measures like masking up, maintaining personal hygiene and social distancing, besides ditching vaccine hesitancy and going for the double-dose inoculation. It can’t be stressed enough that people, especially the young and frequent travellers, need to understand that this is not the time to be complacent or engage in any false sense of security. We, all of us, must understand that we need to stand united in the face of this looming new threat to the world’s health and do everything in our control, and a bit more, to defeat this pernicious virus.

(Courtesy; The Pioneer)