Airbridges and Reservoirs

In the UK where I live, and in global mainstream media, there is increasing talk about airbridges. In the context of this pandemic, the word ‘airbridge’ has a new meaning. It’s an agreement to allow people to travel between two countries without the impediment of quarantine upon arrival.

An airbridge between Australia and New Zealand makes sense. Both countries have nearly eradicated SARS-CoV-2 from their populations. Like my mother and aunt who have maintained stringent self-isolation for more than two months, Australians and New Zealanders should be able to visit each other with very little risk of passing along the virus.

The UK, where I live, is talking about establishing airbridges too. But who could agree to be on the other end? The UK has not dealt with the pandemic well. A couple of years ago, like the USA, it was ranked among the best prepared countries in the world for coping with a pandemic. Also like the USA, it didn’t follow through on its own guidebook. It frittered away precious weeks when it could have been getting ready. When it got around to responding, it fumbled again and again. Although past the first peak, the UK still has the virus everywhere.

If you were a country like New Zealand, would you want to let Britons visit without going through a 14 day quarantine upon arrival? What if you were Denmark, which dealt with COVID-19 so well that schools have begun to reopen without causing a catastrophic spike in the infection rate? What if you were Germany, which fought hard to wrestle the virus down to a point where it can, with some pain, experiment with reopening? Would you want to endanger your hard-won progress and risk your safety?

Airbridges can only work between countries where prevalence of the virus is roughly equivalent. When a country is prominent but its coronavirus load is still too high, other countries may feel obligated to discuss an airbridge agreement. However, to protect their people the healthier countries dare not actually put such an arrangement in place.

The brutal truth is that the USA has become the world’s top reservoir of rampant COVID-19. Americans have become Typhoid Mary. Only other countries that have uncontrolled outbreaks can afford an airbridge agreement with the USA.

Britons are not far enough behind them. The UK has added complications from a government hell-bent on crashing out of the EU’s common market at the end of this year without a trade agreement. As of this morning, the UK is also backing away from China. All this is happening in a country that only produces half the food it consumes. Reportedly the government expects a cozy trade deal with the USA to replace its trade relationships with its neighbors and the Chinese. But bad as the UK’s pandemic figures are in comparison with the rest of Europe, it’s doing better than the USA. It isn’t in bad enough shape to waive quarantine for Americans. It is bad enough to be a worrying reservoir of the virus in Europe, so it isn’t good enough for most of its neighbors to safely agree an airbridge with it.

Nature doesn’t give a damn about political posturing or political stature. Countries that provide a reservoir for the virus cannot expect airbridges with countries that don’t. And for countries as well as for people, going it alone is a lot harder than going together with friends and allies.