Chief Operating Officer of AirAsia Group or now known as Capital A, Tony Fernandes has taken to social media to questions the governments on the hardline stand over restricting travel bans.
He questioned if the learning over in dealing with Covid-19 with masks, social distancing, and vaccines has thought anything and that a key lesson that hadn’t sunk in is the futility of long-term travel restrictions.
Tony added travel restrictions imposed in the early stages of an outbreak make sense when cases are few and contagion paths traceable, it buys time to learn more about the virus, prepare hospitals, and roll out vaccines.
However, he noted that travel bans come with their own issues, once imposed they tend to stay awhile longer even though they are no longer useful, citing that once a virus or variant is freely circulating in a country, any imported infections make very little difference to the burden of the disease yet citizens suffer disproportionately due to the social and economic impact of the travel ban.
Secondly, the low-cost airline founder adds people still get permission to cross borders e.g.citizens, essential workers, diplomats. Successful long-term travel bans like those seen in Australia and New Zealand came at enormous cost to both their own global links and to their own citizens and are unsustainable.
Alternatively, Tony suggests a better and more sustainable approach which is to promote cost-effective policies (vaccines and boosters) and deploy common sense.
“We should not ban things just to be seen as decisive. Measures should always aim to be proportionate and minimally disruptive”
