We have been promised we will come out of the pandemic a number of times, and so far these predictions have fallen flat.

Over a longer term, however, we know that sooner or later, we, the world, will come out of this crisis.

The fight against Covid is multi-pranged. The world has now developed quite a range of vaccines which, although they are at a very early stage, show promise.

There are, as we know, all those issues regarding sufficient production to satisfy the demand together with a host of associated issues in the logistics field (not forgetting the issue of ensuring poor countries get their share of the vaccine).

By the end of this year, many countries will have reached the stage at which the majority of citizens will have been vaccinated.

By itself, however, this will not be enough to vanquish the pandemic.  The opinion of the most credible of experts is that the rather simple rules we should have been following – distancing, hygiene, and following up each case of infection – are strictly followed even in the foreseeable future.

Unfortunately, the reason why many countries including our own have failed to stem the rise of the infection is due to lax enforcement. Countries like Taiwan (just one case in many months, deaths only a fraction of our rate) or Israel, which had been prepared for any eventuality for a long time,  shame us and the so-called advanced states which have been made to assist helplessly as people died by droves.

There is an argument which can be made that autocratic countries may be better placed to combat a pandemic than countries with open societies.

Whatever, we can now see that most countries have staggered back from the cliff-edge where lax enforcement and other causes led to a spike of cases that rose to a storm around Christmas. Countries, again not we, imposed lockdowns, shut schools, and enough restrictions that have even  led to public protests against the restrictions.

We can now see sensible and sustained decreases in the spread of the infections, hospitalisations and deaths. This is so even in the UK which at one point risked getting out of control.

Meanwhile travel restrictions remain in force and Malta, so dependent on tourism, is bleeding lost jobs and crashing companies.

It is now clear that regardless of the government’s efforts, the economic consequences of the pandemic will be huge and long-lasting. It does not have to come from experts – our economy is mostly based on tourism and the movement of people and these are precisely the sectors most affected by the pandemic’s restrictions.

I can see no alternative for these sectors but to restructure, and retool their offerings, maybe also to join efforts and aim at synergies.

But the other sectors, well maybe many of them,  can do a lot. I want to speak today about the benefits of the internet and all that it implies.

Many of us have been forced by the pandemic to work from home and, though we miss the camaraderie of the office, we have adapted to working from home. Maybe we have found we have worked for longer hours as the distance between home and work disappeared (as did the difference between outdoor wear and the ubiquitous pyjamas).

One important area in this regard is schooling where, to be generic, private and church schools forged on ahead and the state schools lagged behind. This adds a further discriminant to the already skewed playing field.

Some years back, in an effort to introduce a measure of equality, the proposal was made to give State school children a tablet. Then this proposal was adopted by the two parties and became effective around the 2013 election.

As usual, we focused on the hardware and conveniently forgot the software. People and parents can tell if the free tablets have been successful or not. All I know is that teachers have been complaining about lack of assistance since many of them are not computer-savvy.

Children from families where motivation was low have been left at sea with their tablets which soon became useless toys. Parents with low educational level could not help their children and no help was offered them. So as the pandemic dragged on, parents were hassled to keep the children quiet and off the streets. In many cases, regardless of the risk of contagion, grandparents were roped in while the parents went off to work.

The entire benefit of home schooling, distance learning and the use of the internet in education was lost. At the same time, there do exist schools where homework is set and corrected by email. Maybe these schools can do even more, as regularly happens abroad.

All this means lost opportunities which today’s children will carry with them later on in life. We can already feel this later on in life at work, in adapting to post-pandemic style of work. Fortunately there are still companies and individuals who can compete with foreign companies, individuals and structures but they are still the exception.

As a country, we must find ways of helping each other overcome these handicaps and promote good practices which elevate our competency.

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