LETTERS: On July 19, Britain lifted strict restrictions imposed earlier to curb the spread of Covid-19, with the media touting it as "Freedom Day".
Britons went back to life pre-coronavirus, such as doing away with the face mask rule or allowing theatres to open with full stalls again.
But, new infections in Britain have not abated. It is climbing in the past weeks, with 46,558 cases reported on Tuesday. In the week before that, 332,068 cases were reported, a 40.7 per cent rise over the previous period.
By comparison, Malaysia reported 12,366 infections on July 20, with a population around half of Britain's.
Between June 1 and July 19, 950,000 infections were reported in Britain.
In other words, the country recorded more cases over that 49-day period than the cumulative number of infections in Malaysia, at over 900,000, since the start of the pandemic.
The British government has justified the re-opening of the economy by citing the low death rate due to Covid-19, high vaccination rate in the country and the strain on the economy from a prolonged lockdown.
Britain's Covid-19 death rate stood at 0.4 per 100,000 people, which is one of the lowest in the world. Ninety-six deaths were reported on July 20, a far cry from the close to 2,000 deaths a day in late January. The current Covid-19 death rate in Britain is similar to the one caused by the common flu.
The vaccination rate is also fast-climbing with over two-thirds of its people having received two doses, and almost 90 per cent having received at least one dose. More importantly, the lockdown is driven by the need to keep the British economy above water.
Last year, its economy contracted by 9.9 per cent, the largest dip in 300 years. In the first quarter of this year, its gross domestic product shrunk by a further 1.5 per cent, costing the country trillions of pounds.
This is why the British government took a gamble to reopen the economy despite the raging infection numbers. It boils down to choosing to live with a pandemic where the death rate is similar to that of the common flu or having the economy further choked with prolonged lockdowns.
The British experience should provide valuable lessons for other countries, including Malaysia. All eyes will be on how the country walks the lives-livelihood tightrope in the weeks and months to come.
In Malaysia, our daily infections have also spiked over the past weeks until we reached five figures. But if it's any consolation, most of the cases were Categories 1 and 2, meaning the patients either had no or mild symptoms.
Vaccination is no silver bullet in ending the pandemic but it is key for Malaysia and other countries to return to some semblance of pre-pandemic days, insofar as economic activities are concerned.
With the National Recovery Plan now in motion, it is time for us to prepare for the eventual re-opening of the economy and reclaim the life that has eluded us over the past 18 months.
LOUIS KANG
Petaling Jaya, Selangor
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times