KUWAIT: The strict measures taken by the government towards aviation and travel, the latest of which was imposing a 14-day quarantine on arriving passengers, came as a precious opportunity with high economic revenues for neighboring countries that were more flexible in dealing with COVID-19, a local daily argued in a report published yesterday.
The report claims that these countries are "taking advantage of the situation in Kuwait to revive several of their sectors while Kuwait wasted such an opportunity." Countries such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Turkey, Lebanon and Tunisia opted for less harsh and strict precautionary measures compared to compulsory quarantine for returnees. They followed the same measures used by European countries, which rely on health tests including PCR.
In this regard, Kuwait Travel Agents Union told Al-Rai daily that Kuwait's economy is currently suffering from wasted operational opportunities in various sectors due to the strict measures that go far beyond preventing the spread of the virus to making normal life restrictive, which reflects a 'corona obsessive compulsive disorder', as the union described it.
The union added that compulsory quarantine is an impediment for thousands of citizens and residents desiring to travel and made the mere thought of planning a trip burdensome in view of the current situation and the lack of direct flights to destinations that used to have high operation levels. The union also pointed out that over 30 countries do not oblige passengers travelling there to undergo home quarantine. "Those countries are actually recovering and there is a great demand for travel there, which has a highly positive impact on various economic sectors there," the union claimed.
"Countries worldwide have resumed normal life and re-opened their airspaces, while Kuwait bans receiving passengers arriving directly from 31 countries," the union added. It noted that this has cost Kuwait's economy considerable losses that are still growing, because Kuwait's decision that passengers from those 31 countries can only return after spending 14 days in a third country has provided ample opportunities for seven GCC and European countries to attract more tourists and transit passengers, who revive those countries' hotels, various touristic facilities and airlines by sums they spend on their way back to Kuwait, while Kuwait gets nothing.
Stranded teachers
In the meantime, Egyptian teachers employed by Kuwait's Ministry of Education (MoE) and who are currently stranded in Egypt urged Kuwait's Education Minister Saud Al-Harbi to save them from the consequences of a flight ban decision, namely by giving them their salaries and financial dues. The teachers, who reached out to Al-Rai, stressed they only left Kuwait due to compulsory family obligations and not for tourism before the travel ban decision was suddenly made.
The teachers also explained that they had been waiting for five months for MoE's decisions so that they can return to work, but to their surprise, MoE decided to conclude the academic year. The minister also said teachers couldn't leave without travel permits on grounds that they would have to be back before the beginning of the following academic year. "It was not our fault. Why should we be considered absent?" the teachers wondered.
A teacher said that she had to go to Egypt to undergo gallbladder surgery and see her elderly mother, leaving her husband and children in Kuwait. "It is unfair to consider me absent and on leave without pay after serving for 12 years in Kuwait," she said.
While the teacher predicted flights will resume by Aug 30, an educational source told Al-Rai that MoE had so far not made any decisions concerning stranded teachers and that coordination is in progress with the Civil Service Commission (CSC). "Their fate is expected to be determined by MoE's public education sector by September 1 - the beginning of the new academic year," the source said.
The source added that salaries of the past period cannot be touched, as it is usually the summer vacation for all teachers including grade 12 teachers currently working on concluding the remaining period of the 2019-2020 school year. "This is an exceptional situation and it is expected that MoE will take their family circumstances into consideration, especially since everybody has been affected by the health situation," the sources underlined.
Meanwhile, MoE stopped teachers from going to school in some schools in Ahmadi and advised them to continue teaching online from their homes after discovering a number of teaching and administrative staff members were infected with COVID-19. Some schools urged staff members not to come to school until further notice. However, educational sources stressed that there is no need to suspend school and that all other staff should show up to work.