APRIL 19 — Covid-19 has changed the world forever.

This isn’t to say I believe we will never sit in bars, get on airplanes and take holidays to far-flung places ever again.

The pandemic will pass, either via a vaccine or treatment or simply by becoming endemic. When it does, many of us — myself included — will enthusiastically embrace life again.

However, our sense of security, our sense of invincibility as a species will have taken a beating.

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How will it change our relationship with the world around us? Since the dawn of modern democracy and the end of the absolute rule of kings, there has been ongoing debate about the rights of the state vs the rights of the individual.

This is fundamentally the issue of civil liberties and how much freedom people should have.

While definitions and core freedoms vary from nation to nation — in the US, of course, the right to own a gun is much cherished but the same right in Singapore or even the UK is unthinkable — there is also some consensus.

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It is broadly accepted that people should have the right to free speech (though definitions vary wildly).

Most societies agree that people have a right to assemble and go about their business without interference.

That people should be able to engage in commerce where it does not cause inconvenience to others and so long as they pay their taxes as is the freedom to choose one’s own religion.

There is also the idea of a right to privacy where my movements and conversations should not be known to or disclosed by the government unless I’m suspected of some sort of crime.

The exact parameters are fluid but the basic idea of a limit to state power has held for decades and even centuries but Covid-19 has shifted the needle.

Governments worldwide are exercising unprecedented influence over their citizens’ lives.

Billions of humans are now under effective house arrest.

Freedom of movement and assembly was the first casualty of Covid-19 lockdowns.

Freedom of speech has also suffered: spreading Covid-19 disinformation can now get you fined or jailed in some parts of the world.

Many people are no longer free to earn a living and millions of people and businesses are being supported by the state.

Singapore has now mandated that everyone who steps outside their homes must wear a face mask or risk a fine.

Now, of course, governments have not taken these steps to impose some sort of tyranny on their population.

Covid-19 presents an unprecedented global threat to human health. States have had to act in this way to mitigate greater harm.

No other organisation, NGO or company has the capability to safeguard the populace from Covid-19 so these measures had to be taken but as with everything, there must be awareness and limits.

I worry this is something that has not been given enough thought. There hasn’t been time.

This sort of pandemic is new, and the response is like nothing we’ve ever seen but it must be considered.

How much power should governments have in a pandemic situation and for how long should this power last? How can we ensure that measures like monitoring people’s movements and documenting their temperatures are rolled back?

While it’s clear that governments are currently protecting their people — in the past many excesses and abuses have been the result of governments protecting people from themselves.

Sometimes genuine initiatives can also have unintended consequences.

The Singapore government recently launched its OneService app which asks people to report breaches of the lockdown regulations currently in place.

Perhaps, in principle, a sensible way of leveraging on community but in practise encouraging people to spy on each other has some dark precedents.

Obviously striking a balance between freedom and state authority is never easy and in a pandemic, it is virtually impossible but an attempt does have to be made.

Covid-19 threatens our health today but we cannot let it threaten our freedom forever.

*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.