In these countries, the wearing of facemasks is optional. And as in many optional things, the majority of people tend to take the easy route out.
What a tense but refreshing break it was!
Coming from a country that was strict about the wearing of facemasks, both indoors and outdoors, for the first time in three years, right from London Heathrow Airport, I was excited and frustrated in equal measure to see the faces of people, their gleaming white teeth and their vivacious eyes as they smiled and talked amongst themselves without the slightest glint of concern.
What a sight to behold! Of course, this gives away the fact that I had not travelled outside Botswana since the government waged a war against COVID-19 in March 2020.
However, persistently lingering at the forefront of my mind were anxiety-driven existentialism disquiets. I was not about to yield to the euphoria of throwing away my facemasks. A good two sets of two-and-a-half dozen of them were neatly packed in my carry-on baggage. Two for each day I would be away. Sounds a little like overkill to you! Perhaps it is, but just chill. I am not the type that toys with life. I had the niggling feeling that wearing, not one but two facemasks, was the right thing to do, and must remain non-negotiable, out of respect for the sanctity of life.
I guess the fact that the UK has been rocked by close to 1.2 million COVID-19 reinfections, despite the initial set of inoculations and boosters, did little to boost my confidence in the government’s decision to allow the people to ‘throw away’ the masks. To give you a sense of the scale of this problem, imagine half the population of our beloved country reinfected by COVID-19! Lest you dismiss me as a genius with a knack for bending the truth, let me fess up and acknowledge that I am dramatising and exaggerating just a teeny-weeny bit. If you are a stickler for words, let’s agree to meet each other halfway, and concur that I should be referring to the government’s decision to grant the people the latitude to throw their masks if they so wish!
I couldn’t help but think whether the decision made by the UK government to relax the facemask mandate was politically motivated. I wondered whether the country had reached the so-called herd immunity.
Not only that, I conjectured that the massive backlash of the Partygate scandal might have driven Boris Johnson to minimise the danger posed by the disease, not as a way of granting people the much-cherished civil liberty of walking about with an unmasked face, but as an extreme face-saving measure and an apparent survival strategy for warding off pressure from many unambiguously hostile social and political quarters, many of which openly declared that he was not fit to occupy Number 10, Downing Street.
Upon arrival at the V.C. Bird International Airport in Antigua, I suddenly felt at home again. I was comforted by the fact that all airport officers were wearing facemasks. A few phrases and words vigorously bounced on my cerebrum; ‘physical distancing,’ ‘transmission of a contagious disease,’ ‘sanitisation and washing of hands,’ ‘uncertainty,’ ‘pandemic,’ ‘fatigue,’ ‘cough and fever,’ ‘respiratory illness,’ ‘vaccination,’ ‘isolation and quarantine.’ Finally excited to be among people who valued life as much as I do, I heaved a sigh of relief, somewhat convinced that I would leave Antigua alive. Of course, I am glad that at the time, some phrases and words did not make it to my mind, such as, ‘conspiracy theories,’ ‘hoax,’ ‘Chinese manufactured bioweapon,’ ‘anti-vaxxers,’ ‘antimaskers,’ and ‘gullible Africans.’
However, I wasn’t ready for what awaited me in the arrivals lobby. As soon as I had cleared immigration, I was hit by reality. In the execution of their role as the face of the country, airport officials were wearing facemasks to welcome people, mostly tourists from Europe and the Americas, and reassure them that the country was concerned about the transmission of the disease. In my book, they had succeeded in giving me and others a respectable semblance of observance of COVID-19 safety protocols.
In what seemed like a strange twist of reality, in the arrivals lobby, the faces of almost everyone were maskless. ‘Unmasked’ porters and taxi drivers in the lounge hoped to maintain eye contact and attract customers. The theme of unmasked faces continued as, together with my friend, we drove approximately 30 minutes into the country through densely populated neighbourhoods.
In the three weeks that I spent in Antigua, I struggled to spot a masked face. This English-speaking Island that measures 440 square kilometres and boasts a population of just under 100,000 thrives on offshore financial services and tourism, and enjoys a GDP per capita that is twice that of Botswana. Because of the low population, its white and pink-coloured beaches always seem to be somewhat lonely, with a few nature lovers and sun worshippers sparsely scattered like few and far between pebbles of high value on them. To their credit, and out of a judicious consideration for posterity, the Antiguans have made the decision not to sell a single portion of the 365 beaches to investors, not even to aggressive hoteliers who are often brusque in their demand to forcefully lay their grubby hands on that which does not belong to them.
You would think that Antigua’s ‘compromised’ population, which could easily be wiped out in its entirety by an unexpected natural disaster in one fell swoop, would serve as sufficient motivation for the government to resist all sorts of pressure to relax COVID-19 protocols! But that is not the case. In no time, I found myself at ease with unmasked people and for the first time in over two years, I loathed my facemask. I rued flying back home. I was somehow disconcerted by the fact that I would have no option but to make peace with my facemasks again.
While we were descending onto Sir Seretse Khama International Airport, the giddy excitement of being reunited with my family after a month’s sojourn coupled with my enjoyment of the bird’s eye view of the land close to the airport as the pilot prepared to land was all abruptly disturbed by a confident and overly eager stewardess who was determined not to miss a single passenger as she conscientiously handed the ‘COVID-19’ forms to all on board.
Upon arrival at the airport, the unmistakable feeling that I had arrived in a COVID-19 strict-compliance zone was palpable. All passengers alighting from the aircraft had their masks on.
Hardly two metres into the international arrivals building, a no-nonsense male officer was stationed by a machine that took our temperature and another one that dispensed a sanitiser for our hands. A further two metres away was another officer, this time a diligent female, who painstakingly checked the ‘COVID-19’ forms that we had completed.
It came as a pleasant surprise though when, hardly five days after my arrival home, a friend of mine sent me a press release from the Ministry of Health that among other things advised that the wearing of masks in outdoor areas was no longer mandatory. While at the back of my mind was the fact that these are the same folks who are fond of unceremoniously overruling themselves, I was convinced that this time it was for real because alongside the press release, in its Extraordinary Gazette, the government confirmed the facts captured in the Ministry’s communique.
Lest we confuse our wishes with evidence-based reality, may we all be reminded that COVID-19 days are far from over. The wearing of facemasks is still mandatory for schools and all indoor public gatherings. The government needs to be applauded for taking a reckless-free approach to relaxing some of the COVID-19 safety protocols. Since human life is important and irreplaceable, the government could not afford to throw all caution to the wind.
The hard truth is, this is not the time to throw away masks. We still need them, not only for indoor gatherings but also for protecting ourselves when we are at risk of exposure from friends and strangers alike. Let’s cultivate the habit of always walking with one or two facemasks, just in case! The excitement of the cherished liberty of walking about with unmasked faces is not, and will never be, more important than saving lives.
