Dr Christopher Tufton’s cry of desperation, blaming ‘hard ears’ people for not obeying the COVID-19 restrictions, will not elicit any tears from us. What else did he expect?

For almost all of last year this newspaper and many well-thinking people have been urging the Government to put its focus heavily on ways to live safely with the novel coronavirus, because no one knew when the crisis would be over and we could not be in lockdown mode forever.

The Government seemed to have a rather short-sighted preference for imposing restrictions which, having worked for a time, soon became counterproductive because thousands of people were feeling the pain of joblessness and COVID-19 fatigue.

No plan was made as to how to handle a late surge like the one we are apparently having now.

Neither did the great planners take into account the almost cultural resistance to authority and imposition of rules, not to mention the poorest people who simply can’t survive while obeying COVID-19 protocols.

The worst failing of the Ministry of Health and Wellness is evident in the excruciatingly slow move towards acquiring vaccines, causing us to fall way behind our sister nations of smaller populations.

At Jamaica Observer press time, we were about to receive our first shipment of 50,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, courtesy of our good friend India, and we are thankful.

But that is a gift, which means that even now we have not received any of our paid-up orders.

Notwithstanding all that, we would urge the Government not to fall prey to desperation, as Dr Tufton appears to be doing. While we keep fighting for the vaccines, serious focus should now be placed on putting ourselves in a position to accept the fast-emerging vaccine passports which are meant to make business and leisure travel easier.

The world is racing towards such common sense arrangements, including our biggest trading partner and tourism source market, the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday issued guidance to Americans who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, saying they could mingle indoors with people who are similarly fully vaccinated, without precautions.

Greece and Austria have adopted coronavirus vaccination passports, the idea being to permit those who have been vaccinated to travel freely within the European Union.

Sweden plans to launch a digital coronavirus vaccine passport by summer. Iceland is the first Schengen country to issue digital COVID-19 vaccine certificates. Denmark had also planned to roll out vaccine certification before protesters slowed it down.

Singapore firms have developed digital vaccine passports to verify travellers’ COVID-19 test results as the borders reopen. Hungary is planning to launch an immunity passport that can act as evidence that the traveller had been earlier infected by the novel coronavirus and thus has antibodies against the disease.

Thailand is proposing vaccine passports to avoid quarantines for travellers who have been vaccinated. Israel has unveiled a ‘Green Booklet’ that will allow people who have been inoculated against the virus to travel, and Australia too is in support.

We can’t afford to fall behind again.