Poking its fangs like venomous snakes across the nook and cranny of the world and wreaking havoc on the poor and rich like wildfire consuming plantation farms in the Atacama and Sahara deserts, the COVID-19 pandemic has rendered the globe an unpleasant place to inhabit. The world is no longer what it used to be.
With the recent suspension of air flights, locally and internationally, thereby restricting human travels, global immigration has just been wacked a bashing by coronavirus, comparable only to the one achieved by the outbreak of the World War I in July 1914. What an immigration bedlam we have all just witnessed and still witnessing.
Before the outbreak of World War I, global human remotion and (of course) commutation which had been largely characterised by peace, spontaneity and fiscal allurement were suddenly re-shaped by escapes from war, legal constraints, political muscle-flexing and the search for better lives (particularly by the citizens of the not so economically buoyant nations around the world).
It is not tidy to assume that the impact of COVID-19 on global immigration will be transient now that flights are being gradually recommenced locally and internationally.
On the global scene, things have started happening. Recently, the co-founder and Chief Executive of Charity Medical Detection Dogs, Dr Claire Guest, said on the British Broadcasting Corporation that six dogs were being trained in Milton Keynes, England, with a view to eventually sniffing out the presence of coronavirus in passengers as they travel in and out of the UK.
Backed by £500,000 of the UK Government funding involving scientists from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Durham University, the major airports in the UK would probably soon be equipped with ‘COVID dogs’ to screen up to 250 people per hour. What an interesting impact that would have on immigration as passengers queue at the airports watching helplessly as these dogs wag their tails and stick out their tongues sniffing for the presence of the virus in them even before any meaningful symptom is experienced and/or exhibited.
In Germany, military sniffer dogs are being trained for the same purpose. Meanwhile, a Finnish study has shown that dogs learnt to recognise the distinctive odour of a coronavirus infection and that, in future, dogs might be able to detect infected people in nursing homes or at airports. Still, in the United States of America, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine are already working with pooches to help with early detection of COVID-19 in humans. Read my lips on this, other serious countries around the world will soon follow suit.
It is heartening to learn that a Nigerian dog trainer, Idowu Abiodun, has said he can train dogs to detect coronavirus carriers. Without mincing words, may I advise the appropriate bodies in the country that efforts and resources should be deployed to support Abiodun in achieving this feat with a view to using dogs in detecting the virus in carriers travelling through our airports, rather than continuing with the poking of infrared forehead thermometers at passengers to detect the level of their body temperatures.
The question then is, how will the use of sniffer dogs reshape global immigration? Your guess is as good as mine: longer queues at the airports. Granted, those ‘COVID dogs’ (when they are eventually ‘unleashed’) may be able to screen up to 250 people per hour but the fact remains that queues at the airports all over the world caused by the scourge of coronavirus may have come to stay permanently. You know how important air transport is to global immigration. Don’t you?
Around the globe, while some countries are planning compulsory coronavirus tests for anyone arriving at their airports from high-risk countries, others are offering travellers a choice of either getting tested on arrival at the airports or subjecting themselves to a ‘cliff edge’ of quarantine for 14 days. It’s apt to observe that either or both of the measures will be a deterrent to global immigration.
Furthermore, with the general feeling in the aviation industry that flights won’t return to pre-pandemic numbers until 2022, 2023 or beyond, prospective passengers’ motivations to travel may be dampened, thereby reducing global immigration.
By their actions, some governments across the globe are saying the fear of the second wave of coronavirus is the beginning of wisdom and with countries such as Hong Kong on the verge of large-scale outbreaks, one can conclude that it’s not yet Uhuru from the scourge of coronavirus. As foreign governments implement strict travel restrictions and as fewer international transport options are available, the UK, through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, recently advised against all non-essential international travels initially for 30 days. The Canadian Government has also advised against non-essential travels outside Canada, even as the German foreign ministry has followed suit by advising against ‘non-essential tourist travels’ due to the risks posed by coronavirus. Tourism and international travels being integral parts of global immigration have started paying dearly for the scourge of coronavirus. Travelling through Birmingham city (UK) airport recently, I was shocked to discover that just few people were going on holidays at a time of the year when airports were usually jam-packed with passengers going on vacations. You want to know why this is so? For an answer, you can ask one of the RNA viruses and a subfamily of the orthocoronavirinae – COVID-19.
At the end of the day, whichever way the pendulum of the post-coronavirus pandemic economic equation swings, the rude shock may be that while low pricing may not persuade passengers to put bums on seats because they may have higher concerns for their health, high pricing will discourage them outright.
Kunle Ajigbolamu is a global Immigration law expert and solicitor of the senior courts of England & Wales.
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