The fact thats British parents could not travel from the United Kingdom to the United States to watch their daughter play, and win, the US Open final was more than just a bittersweet family story. It was one more stark reminder of how the Covid-impacted world has put up new walls and doors to curb international travel and how arbitrary they are.
Britons have simply not been allowed to travel to the US. This situation has persisted since the pandemic began in March 2020. In exceptional circumstances, special waivers are granted: however, Emma’s parents (like the rest of the world), were not to know that their exceptional daughter would go on to create those circumstances. Now Americans on the other hand, could easily travel to the UK.
Earlier in the pandemic they (Americans) were required to do a 14-day quarantine in the UK. Later, not even that. Is that because US rates of Covid positivity were lower than those in the UK? Or that vaccination rates in the US were higher? None of the above. It seems to be simply a case of Uncle Sam saying (and Britain agreeing) I can do it, so I will! In the last 20 months, with countries reeling under the impact of the pandemic, entry rules have become increasingly erratic.
There seems no considered rationale based on health indices, no long-term strategy, no global agreement on which vaccines are recognised and what is considered safe – just a knee jerk reaction of banging the door shut. Mostly in the face of people from economically weaker countries. I can do it, so I will! Pre-Covid, we lived in a fairly simple, if harsh world.
There were those, mainly in the developed world with ‘pass’-ports that passed every test of international travel and breezed through. And then there were others, Indians amongst them, who had fail-ports. They required visas to go almost anywhere. People in the developing world were used to the humiliation of getting visas to prove that they would return to their ‘homeland’ and not seek a better life in the developed country they were travelling to.
They were immune to demands by consular officers to see their bank statements and income tax returns to prove they had sufficient funds to support themselves and enough vested in their home country to return to. They stood in long queues under the sweltering sun to undergo interrogation by imperious officials who would ask for an additional photocopy, or a passport photo in a different size and send them to the back of the queue.
And time consuming and expensive though it was, people had faith in the visa system, because there was an underlying rationale behind the rules. Once you had proven that you owned a two-bedroom flat in Mumbai, there was nothing stopping you from holidaying in London or Paris or New York. Once you had filled in the forms and declared you were not a terrorist, nor convicted for any crime, you could hope for the ultimate prize: a two-year multiple entry to Europe.
However, Covid has added yet another dimension to the humiliation. It is not just that travellers from developing countries are seen as potential immigrants, they are seen as a potential carriers of Covid. Add to this, the arbitrary nature of vaccination and PCR testing credibility and you get a completely muddled picture. Canada did not recognise Indian RTPCR tests.
The Netherlands did not recognise vaccines given in France. The UK did not recognise the Indian vaccine Covishield, despite some batches of the Oxford Astrazeneca being produced in India and India being the largest producer of vaccines in the world. Yet even in this chaotic set of travel guidelines, there were broad patterns that emerged, and they represented a coming together of common interest groups.
As in all crises, the drawbridges were pulled up, the walls made higher and more forbidding, the doors shut more firmly. Developed nations have used Covid as an excuse to delay/deny visas to people who in the past they have let in, grudgingly anyway. Nothing illustrates this more strikingly than the see-saw travel restrictions that the UK imposed on travellers from India.
On 23 April 2021 – as the second wave of the pandemic in India took hold – the UK banned all but British passport holders from entering the country. They were required to take pre-departure Covid tests, yet considered suspect, despite the negative result. Their only fault: flying in from countries which were outside the US or Western Europe, their inherent Britishness tainted by the country they temporarily resided in, Dubai or India or Indonesia.
Those travellers from India with a British passport who braved it, had to do a 10-day quarantine in a government selected hotel. For four months in the summer of 2021, travellers from India and other red-level countries had to pay £1700 or roughly Rs 1.7 lacs and quarantine for 10 days at a government approved hotel in the UK.
The Facebook group formed by these people abounded with stories of suffering and indignity at these forgettable pit stops in substandard hotels, mostly near the airport. Being made to exercise for 20 minutes each evening accompanied by a guard, being handed out unhygienic and unappetising food parcels, being insulted by rude staff at hotels.
Yet nothing was done about it by the British government, despite all these people having British passports or the right of residence in Britain. Some travellers even alleged molestation by security guards; others said they tested positive on day 8 of the quarantine because they had spent 5-6 hours in a crowded bus getting from the airport to the hotel and might have picked up the virus there.
It was neither a well-planned operation, nor one which cut down the risk of transmission. However, it was the kind of virtue signalling that the British government was keen to publicise, and most hapless travellers had no option but to accept. Indian holiday makers, however, have always found a way to travel and agile business interests obliged.
In this instance, travel agents started offering packages to the UK through Russia with a luxury Moscow and St. Petersburg holiday instead of forced quarantine in a forgettable hotel near Heathrow. Mauritius, Dubai, Switzerland, Germany, Turkey, they were all considered stopover options to evade quarantine. As they shut down, one by one, new destinations emerged: Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan… no stone was left unturned, no country left unnoticed by the undaunted Indian traveller.
In August 2021, India’s status was finally changed from red to amber and home quarantine in the UK was allowed but there remained an important bone of contention between the British and Indian governments. India’s Covishield was not accorded the same status as vaccines manufactured in Europe and America. It took a tit-for-tat stand by India, to get the UK to buckle down and accept Covishield. Finally, in October 2021, double vaccinated Indian travellers could finally go to the UK and not have to quarantine at all.
These days with the UK reeling under the spread of the Omicron variant, the tables have turned, and India seems to be considering curbs on travellers from Britain. The pandemic seems far from over and Europe is set to go back into lockdown. But one thing is certain. Vaccines and visas will become diplomatic ammunition as countries pull rank in a post-Covid world. Travel will be fraught with uncertainty and require testing and masking and the filling of passenger locator/Air Suvidha forms for a long time to come.
Just think: 9/11 happened 20 years ago and liquids are still not allowed in hand baggage on planes, and we seem to accept that completely. Travel will change yes, but it will continue, because human beings have evolved by adapting and being flexible. On a recent flight to the US – an oft-repeated announcement asked us to wear masks between sips and bites. A few years down, masks could be the new seat belts. Worn without complaint and for our own safety.
(The writer lives in London and is the author of East or West: An NRI mother’s manual on how to bring up desi children overseas)