Pamela Cruz. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P].
The use of rapid tests, advances in antiviral treatments and a vaccine against COVID-19 will allow society to trust the government, airlines and vice versa once again, which is expected to revive migration and mobility, said Demetrios G. Papademetriou, president emeritus of the Migration Policy Institute.
The author of the report "Managing the Pandemic and its Aftermath," said that COVID-19, which has become the most devastating in a century, came to change some of the paradigms that existed in terms of migration, borders and economic matters.
And is that, he pointed out that global mobility reached zero because of the COVID-19; that is, it stopped completely after the first phase of the pandemic ocuirrida in March and continued until August and September this year. More than 70 countries continue to have their borders closed, particularly in Europe.
However, in other parts of the world there was an attempt to reopen borders and, as a result, migration, relocation of refugees, as well as offering or accepting asylum requests started to flow again since October.
"Most countries are doing very badly and the challenges we are facing are how we can reopen the economy, how we can slowly open the borders, how we will have some kind of mobility again while protecting ourselves and our population from the devastating effect of that particular virus," the expert stressed.
After almost 58 million cases of AIDS-19 in the world and more than 1 million 376 thousand deaths, it is imperative that the population is aware that, beyond politics, it is the actions of society that will allow us to control the pandemic, reopen the borders and boost the economy.
During the virtual session "As Global Migration Plummets: How Will Borders Reopen and Economies Reboot?" hosted by Ethnic Media Services, the specialist noted that, fortunately for the U.S., a new administration will soon take office that will be more direct with citizens about what needs to be done to combat SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19 disease.
Papademetriou explained that, in addition to health measures, it is essential that society pays close attention to the scientific community in order to make informed decisions.
As a reference, he pointed out that Taiwan has been an example of discipline, because its population has shown that, despite the pandemic, it is possible to cohabit with the virus. "It's a different society, they are more disciplined. People are able to follow the measures and the rules.
Taiwan has a population of 23.57 million people. So far, 611 cases of COVID-19 have been detected and, as a result, 7 deaths have been reported, resulting in a case fatality rate of only 1.14 percent.
The doctor in public policy and international relations said that "it is important to understand that we have not taken control of the pandemic; there has been some good news in the past week about the vaccines that are being developed... the vaccine researchers are going to ask for the right to distribute them on an emergency basis and hopefully that will happen; however, the time between getting that license and the time when the population has access to these vaccines is going to be between six and eight months".
Given that climate, he said this winter and spring 2021 will be difficult, especially for all those countries that are seeing a rise in the number of cases and, therefore, in the number of deaths from the virus.
That won't be reduced, he said, "unless we take the kind of widespread measures that will make a difference, such as wearing face masks and avoiding crowds, including those beyond family gatherings," he said.
He warned that "Thanksgiving in the United States and various holidays in other places are coming up, so we're going to have a resurgence of this virus.
In that sense, he said that if anything has been learned from previous pandemics is that more than 50 percent of deaths occur in the second phase of the disease, so it is necessary to take more care.
"We have to take care of our family and put into practice what we know can make a difference. It doesn't matter who our political leaders are, what they have done or not done. The people who are in charge of the crisis and its recurrence are us, the people. We are not listening to the experts, we are breaking the rules".
In this regard, he stressed that there is an opposition narrative that thinks that "this has to do with freedom, groups of people who say they are tired, tired and angry - because of the emerging measures - and they are worried that governments are saying one thing or another, and that has affected them as well. It is essential that we move away from that narrative, we must put that nonsense aside. The rules are simple: you have to take care of yourself".
Finally, he noted that it is time to thank all migrants, those who, regardless of how they arrived in the country, have been key players in the fight against this pandemic, as they perform essential jobs, whether as caregivers, nurses, doctors and day laborers, among many other tasks.
For his part, journalist and editor of Tijuanapress.com, Vicente Calderon, said that President-elect Joe Biden will face a tough task on issues of mobility, migration and the economy, as Central American countries, among others, are already suffering from the ravages of COVID-19.
This, he said, is coupled with increased insecurity in many of these countries, which could lead to an increase in immigrants and refugee applications for the U.S. union, while all these people wait at the northern border of Mexico to enter the United States, either legally or undocumented.
In this regard, he said that the COVID-19 pandemic was the perfect pretext for President Donald Trump's administration to extremize its immigration policies and, with it, there was an increase in the number of agents at the border, as well as more resources for the wall.
