Emirates president Sir Tim Clark has said governments globally have been culpable of taking “knee-jerk reactions” to control the spread of coronavirus in respective countries.
Sir Tim was giving the keynote opening address at the launch of Arabian Travel Market Virtual. Speaking with aviation expert John Strickland, founder of JLS Consulting, he admitted that the recovery process has been slower than he originally envisaged at the start of the crisis last year.
While the UAE continues to lead the way in its vaccination roll-out – with over 12 million doses administered across the country to date – the uneven adoption of vaccines across the world, the continued threat of new mutations and fresh waves of the virus, has resulted in the staggered reopening of international borders and increased restrictions adopted by some countries.
An example of this is the continued presence of the UAE on the UK’s Red List, restricting travel for thousands of British expats living in the country looking to return home for the summer, while also curtailing business and tourism travel.
Earlier this month, Arabian Business wrote an open letter to Grant Shapps, the UK’s Secretary of State for Transports, urging him to rethink the UAE’s Red List status.
John Strickland, founder of JLS Consulting
Sir Tim, a critic of the UK Government’s decision, said: “I think eventually we will get there. The problem we face at the moment is that nobody’s really sure of all the variables that come into this particular problem we face, whether that be the virus itself, the variants, the efficacy of the vaccines, the types of vaccines, the rate of rollout, the rate and the scalability of production, the surge in certain countries that we’re seeing in India.
“This is something that the politicians have never had to face before. And obviously, there’s going to be a certain amount of, dare I say it, knee-jerk reactions to protect the health of their populations. And the easy one, the low hanging fruit for them, is to keep foreign foreigners out, they just add complexity to it.
“But as we gain ground on this and you do 10 steps forward and eight back, eventually we’ll start moving into a period of time where the governments of the planet, whether it be through G7, G20, etc., plus other entities lending informed value to the decisions that are made, there will be I believe consensus where, as the vaccines eventually get to the levels that they need to be, not just in the developed world, but also the developing world, they clearly need a lot of help and you see what’s happened in India today, everybody has stepped up and is shipping large amounts of equipment to deal with the Indian problem.
“So there is a recognition that it is a global problem that it is not just affecting certain parts of the world and therefore we don’t need to bother about it.”
70,176 doses of the #COVID19 vaccine were given in the last 24 hours, to reach 12,104,525 as a total number of doses and with a rate of 122.39 doses per 100 people as vaccine distribution. #TogetherWeRecover
— NCEMA UAE (@NCEMAUAE) May 23, 2021
The UAE has administered over 12 million doses so far, delivering 122 doses per 100 people. Approximately 61 percent of the population is completely vaccinated. Global vaccination rates, on average, stand at 21 doses per 100 people.
Emirates is one of several airlines currently trialling the IATA Travel Pass, which enables passengers to create a ‘digital passport’ to verify their pre-travel test or vaccination meets the requirements of the destination.
Passengers will also be able to share the test and vaccination certificates with authorities and airlines to facilitate travel; while the new app will also enable travellers to manage all travel documentation digitally and seamlessly throughout the travel experience.
Sir Tim said: “I thought, by April, May, June, we’ll be seeing some relief with regard to the demand for travel primarily in the latter part of the summer and the winter of this year. That’s slowed a little bit for the reasons that we know about, but is that going to change the whole situation? No it isn’t. It’s a question of timing. We’ve got difficulties to go through as the scientific medical communities research, medical research, with pharmaceutical producers and all this, gradually get on top of this virus, which they will, make no mistake about it, they will.
“And I think probably it’s more a question of scaling production, distribution of that, particularly with the undeveloped world where there are hardest hit and getting it to them as equals, on an equitable basis. I’ve been saying this for a long time, because it’s the right thing to do. It’s a problem that has faced humankind on the planet nothing like this before that we’ve had to deal with in our general lives and it needs to be dealt with in a grown and intelligent manner, bringing all the governments together.”
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