Relaxation of Covid restrictions: You lower your arms at your own peril

Sanitary measures are still strongly advisable and this is now overwhelmingly the individual’s responsibility

By Dr R Neerunjun Gopee

The authorities have issued a communiqué detailing the lifting of restrictions that had been imposed because of the Covid pandemic. All over the world after the mandatory serial lockdowns followed by partial opening up and lifting of restrictions, as the pandemic state prolonged, people started to feel burnouts and pandemic/mask ‘fatigue’. In parallel all sectors of the economy and business were feeling the adverse impacts.

From these various stakeholders and interest groups clamours soon became louder and louder for a quicker lifting of restrictions, with each country deciding for itself about the timing. It has been a delicate balancing and risky act, but at some stage all countries have had to take the call on this issue.

Our turn had inevitably to come. Hence the communiqué. While this may seem to some as being an opening of the floodgates to potentially more surges of Covid, and to others as an overdue measure, the fact remains that Covid is still around in the form of its more virulent and ever mutating variants.

The message is therefore that you lower your arms at your own peril – i.e. sanitary measures are still strongly advisable and this is now overwhelmingly the individual’s responsibility. But that does not absolve the authorities of their even greater responsibility: to use this opportunity to consolidate preparedness at hospital level, that is, the treatment dimension about which there have been a number of complaints from the public. These shortcomings tarnish the reputation of our health system which we proudly claim to have the best indicators in Africa. Why should we not take a pledge to and stake the same claim for Covid care? Read More… Become a Subscriber


Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 1 July 2022

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