Hope and a coiled spring

By Kevin-James Fenech

Kevin is the founder and owner of JOB Search - jobsearch.mt and FENCI Consulting fenci.eu.

The Prime Minister recently spoke of hope and encouraged people to ‘dream big’ as we navigate ourselves out of this pandemic and focus on the inevitable recovery.

At the same time, the Chief Economist at the Bank of England, Andy Haldane, stated that: “The rapid rollout of the vaccination programme across the UK means a decisive corner has been turned in the battle against Covid and a decisive corner is about to be turned for the economy too, with enormous amounts of pent-up financial energy waiting to be released, like a coiled spring.”

He estimates that households have accumulated £125bn ($175bn) in savings during the pandemic and this “nest-egg” could reach £250bn by June at the current rate.

I think we have a lot to be hopeful about and restoring confidence, is now the key. I say this because science has won the COVID-19 battle and now we just need the vaccine roll out to take its course.

In fact, research by Clalit on 1.2 million Israelis, clearly reveals that the Pfizer vaccine has resulted in a 94% drop in symptomatic cases and a 92% drop in serious cases. Similar results within a range apply to the main vaccines as well.

So with Malta speedily inoculating the population at an ever increasing rate, I see no reason why post-Easter we can’t free ourselves of those suffocating face masks and grin with relief in anticipation of summer. I also think that tourists will flock back to Malta this summer and the long-awaited feel good factor, not to mention the injection of tourist spending in the local economy, will kick in vigorously.

Bill Gates stated a few days ago that solving COVID is ‘easy’ compared with climate change. Naturally, a statement like that made the international headlines but I dare say that I agree with him and just wish that the majority of the population would be equally as positive and hopeful. The worst is over and the vaccine is the big game-changer since the risk of COVID-19 goes down with every week that we inoculate more people.

What a lot of people seem to be ignoring or forgetting is that we don’t have to achieve ‘herd immunity’ for the recovery to start, since once you’ve inoculated the vulnerable and elderly, public health restrictions can start to be lifted since they were there mainly to protect them, meaning restaurants increasing their capacity, bars reopening and tourists allowed back to our islands. It also means we can return individual liberties and freedoms to our citizens who have throughout this pandemic been asked to surrender far too much all in the name of ‘public health’.

We can then watch the ‘coiled spring’ unleash the economic recovery we so desperately crave for. Forecasts are in fact encouraging, with GDP within the EU set to grow by 3.7% in 2021 and 3.9% in 2022. Put another way, the EU economy will reach the pre-crisis level of output earlier than originally anticipated by all the doomsayers and V-shape recovery is the most likely outcome.

But it all starts with hope! So dream big, we must otherwise everyone stays on the wayside waiting for the next person to courageously venture out but recoveries don’t work like that. We must all believe that the future will be brighter and take decisions today to make that future happen. This means business people must be convinced that Health Minister Chris Fearne will not want to retain control and public health restrictions, since otherwise investments will not be made, recruitment will not be re-started and the economy as a whole will remain frozen.

Hope beats fear and recovery depends on confidence. The recovery can only take place if we genuinely want to free our society from all the COVID restrictions as the vaccine roll out grows in momentum to protect the vulnerable and the elderly, allowing the rest of society to resume normality.

Hope and a ‘coiled spring’ that is allowed to burst out and unleash all that pent up demand and desire, is what I want for my country and it all starts with decisions taken now and sentiments expressed today.