A MOROCCAN ODYSSEY

I am scheduled to begin a month-long assignment in Morocco on 5 March. Amidst the growing global alarm over Covid-19, my brother strenuously urged against travel. He warns, “By 15 March this will explode, there will be a pandemic, airports will shut, flights will be cancelled, you will be stranded- maybe for months. Don’t travel!”

My 72-year-old mother, who has medical complications, is meant to travel with me and she is violently opposed to the trip. However, Morocco’s grandest ultra-luxe resorts, which I am on assignment to review, assure that Morocco is perfectly safe. The travel industry, including tour operators and the airline we are booked on, urges that if all travel writers stopped travelling and the media announced advisories against travel, tourism would collapse with terrible economic repercussions.

So, I land up in Morocco, coercing my mother into the trip, to crusade for its tourism. Ironically, just after I land I find myself attacked by a tour operator, who says the common cold takes more lives than Corona virus, but the “sensationalist media” is inciting trip cancellations, engendering economic harakiri.