No respecter of persons
View(s):The coronavirus is no respecter of persons. It strikes anyone, anywhere and particularly in cold climates. That’s why it seems to have affected countries with lower temperatures, while those in the tropics have largely been spared.
More than 70 countries have been affected by varying degrees, the biggest being China – where the virus originated – followed by South Korea, Italy, Iran, Japan, France, Germany and the US. It hits the rich and poor without hesitation while resulting in death mostly to elderly persons. Over 3,000 people have died so far.
It’s worse than the SARS (SARS-CoV) virus identified in 2003. SARS-CoV also originated from China, first infecting people in the Guangdong province of southern China in 2002. That epidemic affected 26 countries.
As I reflected on these thoughts on Thursday morning, the shrill sound of Aldoris, the ‘choon paan karaya’, in his old, three-wheeler drew my attention to the gate where Kussi Amma Sera had gathered with her ‘margosa tree conversation’ friends to have a chat with the neighbourhood baker.
Kussi Amma Sera had a folded newspaper under her arm. She had been reading an article on the impact of the coronavirus on West Asian countries where more than 200,000 Sri Lankans travel to work every year.
She said: “Ape Sri Lankika sahodara sahodariyanta kisidu gataluvak nethai kiyala mama hithanava (I hope our Sri Lankan brothers and sisters don’t have any problems).”
Responding while taking two ‘maalu paan’ from the baker’s bread basket, Serapina said she believed that Sri Lankan embassies are on alert to help any Sri Lankan if affected. “Eheth meda peradigata yana Sri Lankave aya gatha yuthu piyawara piḷibandava puvath-pathvala thorathuru madi (But there is very little information in the newspapers about what precautions Sri Lankans going to the Middle East should take),” added Mabel Rasthiyadu.
After purchasing their morning breakfast from Aldoris while needling him to reduce his prices, the trio went to the margosa tree to continue their conversation on the coronavirus.
What Mabel Rasthiyadu said was very revealing. That there is little information in the media about the precautions that Sri Lankans migrating for work to West Asia should take, is an understatement. There is actually no proper information as the focus of attention is on tourist arrivals, Sri Lankans working in South Korea and dozens of Chinese workers on construction sites in Colombo. Community Development Services (CDS), an NGO working to ensure the rights of migrant workers, said: “We must alert every migrant worker leaving our shores for foreign employment as they would be exposed to travel and new environments and multinational worker communities in their countries of destination. It is our collective responsibility and the responsibility of the Sri Lanka Foreign Employment Bureau and all recruiting agents as well.”
Noting that it is very likely that destination countries will immediately repatriate suspected cases to their home countries, CDS expressed a hope that Sri Lankan authorities will not only look at effective quarantine programmes but will also have urgent treatment plans and even consider workman compensation under the registered insurance scheme or re-migration and re-employment at no cost to the migrant worker. On the other hand, it is also possible that Sri Lankan missions in these countries are doing their best to serve the people which, however, is not being recorded in the public space here.
Just as I walked into my office room with a cup of tea, considering the impact of this deadly virus on employment in West Asia, the phone rang. It was know-all neighbour ‘Haramanis’ of broken English fame on the line wanting to discuss (and readers you guessed it right) – the coronavirus.
In this instance, he was inquiring about the cancellation of a key global tourism fair in Berlin, ITB Berlin last week owing to fears of the coronavirus. “I shay, they have cancelled that tourism fair in Berlin. Germany is not badly affected … so why take this decision,” he asked.
“As a precaution to prevent large numbers of people coming from all over the world to one location. Many countries are cancelling trade shows that bring people from different countries, as one way of spreading the virus is from human-to-human contact by affected persons,” I said.
“But this will be a severe blow to our tourism. Will we be able to recover?” he asked, again. “Only time will tell… only time will tell,” I replied, adding that there is a view that the virus will be less virulent once the European summer months arrive.
Tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka in February fell by 17.7 per cent largely due to the impact of the coronavirus on travel. In the case of China, until now Sri Lanka’s third largest tourist source market, the fall in February 2020 was worse: A drop of 92.5 per cent to 2,096 arrivals, from 28,039 in February 2019.
In the top 10 countries whose travellers visit Sri Lanka, except for India and Russia which recorded increases in February, visitors from the UK, Germany and France recorded a drop in arrivals.
The Central Bank in a statement on Thursday said that the widespread impact of the coronavirus on China, the world’s second largest economy, will have spillover effects on the global economy through weakening trade, tourism and investment flows.
“Sri Lanka’s economic links with China could be directly affected as significant volumes of consumer goods, intermediate goods and investment goods are imported from China. The likely slowdown of the global economy and disruptions to the supply chain could affect Sri Lanka’s merchandise and service exports as well as related logistics. The slowdown in global tourist movements will affect Sri Lanka’s tourism sector, in addition to the direct impact of lower arrivals from China. The spread of the virus to countries with a significant number of Sri Lankan migrant workers could affect remittance inflows as well,” it said.
In the corporate world, travel to and from countries in which Sri Lankan corporates have dealings have also been affected. Business executives are not travelling to the worst-hit cities while conferences and small-group meetings have either been postponed or cancelled. Sourcing raw material from China has badly affected Sri Lankan industries. China is one of the biggest sources of either raw material or assembled products (our Down to Earth columnist colleague in his column on this page alludes to the fact that US-based Apple, which has a huge phone assembly base in China, has been badly affected), and this has triggered concern across Sri Lanka’s industrial production.
Several airlines originating from Asia have either reduced flights to Colombo or cancelling all flights as the crisis begins to bite travel between these countries. On the plus side, West Asian origin carriers like Emirates for example, are reporting good load factors from Europe to Colombo.
As the search for a medication continues, when the crisis will ease is anybody’s guess.
Whew! While I sit down at the computer absorbing all this information, I wish for another cup of tea. As if answering my prayers, Kussi Amma Sera waltzes into the room with just ‘what the doctor ordered’, placing not only a cup of tea on the table but also a hot, hot ‘maalu paan’.
“Sir meka kanda, harima rassai (Sir, eat this, it’s very tasty)”. Thanking her, I go back to my thoughts wondering whether the tourism industry, in particular, will recover this year after the twin blows of the April 2019 bombing on three luxury hotels and now the coronavirus.