Brexit and Covexit
The naming of names is very important and can be related back to Adam's actions in Genesis in naming the land animals, even before Eve was born.
"Coronavirus" (the virus) and " Covid-19"(the disease) were so named by different international naming bodies and have now passed into common international usage, without people at large necessarily thinking very much about why they are so-called.
"Brexit" - we all know about (unless we have been living on a remote desert island for the last four years).
"Covexit" - will this be new catch-word to describe exiting from the lockdown measures put in place by countries around the world to deal with Coronavirus and Covid-19? Why not? It would seem a word that should be part of the new normal.
On 15 April 2020, the European Commission and the European Council, two major organs of the EU, adopted a Joint European Roadmap aimed at eventually lifting lockdown measures that have been put in place in EU member states to deal with the virus and the disease. This Roadmap is premised on the assumption that it is ultimately for individual EU member states to decide what is best for their populations but that co-ordination on lockdown measures and their lifting and on recovery strategies for the economies of EU member states is vital if the EU and its peoples are to get back on course, both in terms of health and economically.
The Roadmap lists three pre-requisites - cogent epidemiological data; sufficient health system capacity; and appropriate monitoring capacity - as necessary conditions to be satisfied before lockdown restrictions can be lifted in any meaningful way and then proceeds to enlarge on these themes. Accompanying remarks from the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, stress the importance of EU member states working together with the help of the EU to achieve these objectives.
The Roadmap includes a coloured map of Europe showing the different progressions of the disease in different EEU countries. The UK and Norway are both visible in the map but these countries are not coloured in at all and are left in pallid white as if they were icebergs coming from the North Pole.
On 16 April 2020, Dominic Raab, the UK Foreign Minister, announced the extension of lockdown measures in the UK for another three weeks and , in his press conference, listed five tests which needed to be satisfied before lockdown restrictions in the UK could be relaxed - ensuring that the NHS can cope with its Covid-19 -fighting responsibilities across the UK; a sustained and consistent fall in the daily death rate in the UK from the disease; evidence that the rate of infections is diminishing to "manageable levels" across the UK; enough testing and medical equipment to meet demand in the UK; and no risk of a second peak large enough to overwhelm the NHS in the UK.
The pronouncements coming from the EU and the UK on how to exit from the current lockdown restrictions are strikingly similar in many respects but one wonders whether political correctness is preventing these two parties paying sufficient attention to each other when promoting their policies.
Perhaps, now is the time to start talking about "Covexit" as the title of an international set of principles and measures to be promoted to deal with the release in a structured way from Covid-19 lockdown.
Given the frightening international reach of the disease,it would seem logical that international efforts to combat the disease should be co-ordinated, and not just by the World Health Organisation but also by the UK and the EU and other regional powers and groupings.
