As the sun dawns on the year 2021, we have to admit that we have just bid goodbye to a year that will go down in history as possibly one of the most disastrous of recent times. The COVID-19 pandemic has wrought havoc across the world, but we survived the challenges that 2020 threw at us and have emerged stronger from it, making 2021 a crucial year for an entire new way of thinking.
Yet, nothing will change with merely discarding a calendar and replacing it with a new one. Neither will the pandemic end, nor will the standard operating procedures be discontinued, even if lockdowns and curfews will not be forced upon the people. The good news that we in Goa can take comfort in is that the daily news cases of COVID-19 are showing a downward trend. That number, however, has been hovering around a 100 daily and has not dropped appreciably from that figure for quite a few days. It would need to show a much sharper dip before the State can put the pandemic behind it, and look forward to new tasks.
We are on the cusp of a turning point in history, and will require a broad shift in our thinking to meet the challenges that the pandemic will keep throwing at us in the months ahead. We are not yet in a post-pandemic period, and the threat of a second wave of the virus descending still exists. To survive, the State has to plan with the knowledge that the pandemic will continue and the restrictions will not be lifted anytime soon. For though Goa may be currently in a better position than many other States of the country, the virus is raging elsewhere making any area in the global village vulnerable.
The economic losses of the past year, suffered due to the lockdowns and slowdown in business will not be automatically offset in the New Year. There have to be public policies and programmes launched to make this happen. We may still see many businesses being forced to the inevitability of closure because of the losses of the past year, but there is also the hope that the situation will change for the better, but only as long as the system makes this turnaround happen. The State will have to plan with the knowledge that this is going to be a difficult year, but not an impossible one.
Goa, however, starts the year with a slight advantage. It is safe in the knowledge that it remains a favoured holiday destination and the thousands of tourists who descended upon the State in the last week of December would be the best ambassadors of the State’s tourism and COVID-19 safety protocols. Of course, the abject disregard to the pandemic guidelines of social distancing and use of masks was on display, threatening a spurt in COVID-19 cases in the coming day, but the return of the tourist is the best signal for the tourism industry to prepare to meet the demands of travellers.
Against this background is the successful hosting of the Indian Super League (ISL) that is currently on in the State, and coming up later this month is the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) that is going to be held in physical and online mode. This is going to be a crucial test on the ability of the State in meeting the stringent demands of holding a festival in the midst of a pandemic. The planning of course should have come earlier, not in the New Year, but even now it can be done.
