Open Letter to the policy makers and travel & tourism fraternity, 4.0

This is the fourth and hopefully the final open letter in continuation with the three earlier ones on the topic of reopening travel and tourism after two years marked by the pandemic-related disruptions.

Government has done the right thing recently by relaxing the quarantine conditions on incoming tourists. It is high time all remaining restrictions are removed and COVID-19 is declared an endemic disease.

A restrictive Visa regime and imposed quarantine lead to the country missing out on a crucial part of inbound travel of international tourists. It is time to open up and leverage the high levels of natural and vaccination induced immunity that India has achieved.

All remaining domestic restrictions must be done away with like RT-PCR testing still required by some states as if people from other states are likely to come and infect their state - we are all in it together, more or less at the same levels.

India has more than 90% immunity proven in multiple sero surveys that must be recognised and retrograde ideas like checking vaccination status or demanding RT-PCR test reports etc must be completely done away with. Let India be the first country to open fully without any fear and lead the recovery of society and economy, globally.

Although we followed the ineffective lockdown models so far, a complete reopening will position India firmly as a freedom-loving country and show the fallacy of Chinese style ‘zero-covid’ strategy based on draconian abuse of human rights for such a long period of time.

Application of Disaster Management Act 2005 (DMA) should be denotified, to restore all Constitutional freedoms. Continuing it will only in embolden States to carry on with irrational restrictions like night curfews, closing down parks and other open spaces, mask mandates applicable even in outdoor environments or even when driving alone, curtailing freedom of movement and economic activities etc. thus destroying the real economy even further. Police should have no role whatsoever in managing what is essentially a disease that is going to live with us like so many other infectious diseases like TB that spreads exactly the same way and kills twice the number of people every year.

The step of reopening India fully and completely will also heal emotional, physical and economic wounds inflicted by the pandemic related restrictions. It will also proactively quell public discontent visible in massive protests in Canada, now infiltrating into various parts of Europe and the USA.

Countries like Singapore, Israel and more recently the UK, Denmark and Norway have announced the resolve to ‘live with covid’ lifting restrictions in all sectors and resuming activities despite cases remaining ‘high’ in some instances. It is now widely accepted that Covid is not going away from our lives in the near future.

Last but not the least, declaring Covid an endemic disease will reopen our medical establishments and economy, making way for the treatment of other diseases that kill even more people annually than Covid-19 did in the last two years.

European countries like Norway and Sweden have lifted almost all restrictions and there is a strong case for India to do so even more, considering all the factors.

With kind regards,

Sanjiv Agarwal

Publisher and Editor, Travel News Digest,

Founder & CEO, Fairfest Media - Organisers of TTF - India’s oldest and largest travel tradeshow network

sanjiv@fairfest.com

The first three letters, for your reference.
Open Letter to the Travel Fraternity and Policymakers
Open Letter to the Policymakers and Travel and Tourism fraternity, 2.0
Open Letter to the policy makers and travel & tourism fraternity, 3.0