The COVID-19 pandemic is no longer a global health emergency, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Friday.
It’s a remarkable announcement that probably won’t get a lot of attention, but it should. I also note that the U.S. this week announced that it will end requirements for visitors to the U.S. to show proof of vaccination against the coronavirus. The rule, which the U.S. tourism industry said was hurting travel to the States, will come to an end on Thursday, May 11.
Bloomberglaw.com reports some 185 million passengers boarded international flights to the US in 2022, down 23% from 2019.
The virus isn’t gone from our lives, but you could look at the WHO announcement as a very welcome bookend to their March, 11, 2020 bombshell news that it had declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic.
People with COVID-19 who entered Canada during the pandemic were often forced to quarantine at designated hotels. Alexander Grey/Unsplash Photo
The easing of U.S. entry rules comes exactly 38 months after that announcement, which delivered an unprecedented body blow to world travel and tourism, practically shuttering an industry that provides roughly one-in-ten jobs around the world.
It was only a year or so ago that I really started travelling again. But I was still wearing a mask on the plane and wiping down surfaces. Even three months ago I probably took a mask on a plane. But now I just go about my normal routine, almost as if nothing happened.
It’s quite astonishing, actually. For a year or two, about the only travel we did was a walk around the block. When we gathered with our kids, we did around a propane fire ring in the back yard, with thick blankets to ward off the fall or winter cold. Now, we’ve slipped back into our old habits and hardly consider COVID-19.
I know three years is a long time in our personal lives, but in the scheme of things it ain’t much. Our World Wars lasted longer than that. TV shows go on for FAR longer than that.
I’m currently on vacation (well, sort of) in Hawai’i. Two days ago I went for a sunrise walk on the island of Lana’i with my wife and my sister-in-law. As we passed the quiet, empty beach at Manele Bay, I turned to them and said, “You know, I’ve almost forgotten those walks around the block.”
We human beings are a resilient lot, and I think most of us have come back out of our shells. We’re living life the way we did in 2019 and early 2020.
A COVID-19 PCR test kit from Switch Health. JIM BYERS PHOTO
But there are still scars; jobs are hard to fill in the tourism biz, airline prices are high, and business-oriented hotels in most of our big cities are still struggling badly. Resorts are going gangbusters, and smaller meetings are picking up again.
But nobody knows when business travel will fully rebound to pre-pandemic levels. Maybe it never will.
That’s a big problem for cities like Toronto and San Francisco, two places dear to my heart. But we’ve still come an awful long way in 38 months.
On a personal level, I’m no longer answering emails from readers wanting to know what countries they can visit. I haven’t thought about the ArriveCAN app in months, and until just now, I hadn’t written the phrase “quarantine hotel” for perhaps a year. Our home kits for COVID testing are gathering dust in the basement.
We now gather freely with our kids and siblings, tucking the notion of tight family circles deep into our memories. When our grandkids come over they run (well, some times) to meet us and jump into our arms.
I’m back to exploring the world. Last week I was on the Rocky Mountaineer train from Colorado to Utah. After that I had three days checking out national parks in Utah, followed by two days in Las Vegas and a week in Hawai’i. In two weeks I’ll be at a massive U.S. travel convention in San Antonio.
I’m not saying the outbreak is over. We’ll be living with this disease all our lives. I’m still taking some precautions, and recently got my fifth booster shot.
But we have a come a very long way. For that, and for all my friends in this wonderful business of travel, I’m very thankful.
