As Omicron variant cases spread, countries rush to impose travel bans, reports CNN.
South Africa’s transparency
South Africa should be praised for the quality of its science and transparency around the detection of the Omicron variant, not face travel bans, said World Health Organization spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris.
“South Africa should get a gold medal for the quality of its science and the quality of its transparency,” Harris told CNN Monday.
“We have not seen nearly enough of that, of transparency particularly. And indeed, to then make South Africa feel that doing all the right things leads to a very bad outcome is not good,” she added.
Harris argued that this response is also bad for the rest of the world, acting as a deterrent to be transparent.
“Other countries will then feel, ‘why would we come out and say we’ve got this issue, we’ve got this problem,’ if they see this sort of consequence,” she said.
Biden’s statement
President Biden is expected to soon give an update about the new Omicron coronavirus variant.
While no cases of the new variant have been reported in the US so far, the Biden administration is attempting to limit the spread. New US restrictions on travel from South Africa and seven other countries took effect today, as his administration seeks to assure Americans that they are moving swiftly to try to contain the threat.
Much is still unknown about the transmissibility of the new variant and how effective vaccines will be in protecting Americans against it.
Wearing mask is mandatory
City officials in New York City are now highly recommending residents wear masks while indoors in public places, regardless of vaccination status, in an attempt to get ahead of the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant.
While there are currently no identified cases of this new variant in the city yet, City Health Commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi said that this is a way to prevent the incoming spread.
Both Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chokshi encouraged residents to get vaccinated or get a booster in order to also prepare for the new variant. They especially recommended children get vaccinated as soon as possible.
Raising omicron cases
There have been two more cases of the new Omicron variant detected in London, for a total of five in England, and six more in Scotland, British Health Secretary Sajid Javid said Monday in parliament.
Javid said the variant has also been “spreading across the world,” including cases in “Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal.”
Genome analysis
Genome analysis of the Omicron variant from people who arrived in the Netherlands from South Africa on Friday suggests that those passengers were probably already infected before boarding their flights, the Dutch health minister said on Monday.
He said that 14 cases of the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant have now been discovered among those 624 people who arrived in the Netherlands from South Africa on Friday. That is one more case than the previously reported number.
“The sequencing analysis shows that there are different sequences, suggesting that the people affected very likely contracted the virus in different places and in any case not during the flight,” caretaker Health Minister Hugo de Jonge wrote to parliament on Monday. “More samples are being sequenced and the results are expected today. The course of the infection in the people who tested positive will continue to be followed.”
Though De Jonge did not indicate that any cases of community transmission had yet been discovered in the Netherlands, he warned that the discovery of the variant “in other countries” in people who have not recently been to southern Africa points to possible “wider circulation.”
While he said that the variant had “genetic markers that point to possibly higher transmissibility,” he wrote that “based on information now available, it is not possible to properly evaluate whether and in which way the transmissibility of the Omicron variant is higher than that of the Delta variant.”
Travel bans to be lifted in South Africa
Cyril Ramaphosa said he was “deeply disappointed” by the action, which he described as unjustified, and called for the bans to be urgently lifted.
The UK, EU and US are among those who have imposed travel bans.
Omicron in South Africa
The variant is responsible for most of the infections found in South Africa’s most populated province, Gauteng, over the last two weeks, and the number of cases “appears to be increasing in almost all provinces” in the country, according to the WHO.
South Africa reported 2,800 new infections on Sunday, a rise from the daily average of 500 in the previous week.
Government adviser and epidemiologist Salim Abdool Karim said he expected the number of cases to reach more than 10,000 a day by the end of the week, and for hospitals to come under pressure in the next two to three weeks.
Current regulations in South Africa make it mandatory to wear face coverings in public, and restrict indoor gatherings to 750 people and outdoor gatherings to 2,000.
There are no vaccine shortages in South Africa itself, and Mr Ramaphosa urged more people to get jabbed, saying that remained the best way to fight the virus.
Health experts said that Gauteng, which includes Johannesburg, had entered a fourth wave, and most hospital admissions were of unvaccinated people.
Hasty travel bans
The WHO has warned against countries hastily imposing travel curbs, saying they should look to a “risk-based and scientific approach”.
However, numerous bans have been introduced in recent days, with Rwanda and Angola being among the African states to restrict flights to and from South Africa.
Foreign ministry spokesman Clayson Monyela described their decision as “quite regrettable, very unfortunate, and I will even say sad”.
In his speech on Sunday, Mr Ramaphosa said there was no scientific basis for the travel bans and that southern Africa was the victim of unfair discrimination.
“The only thing the prohibition on travel will do is to further damage the economies of the affected countries and undermine their ability to respond to, and recover from, the pandemic,” he said.
Mr Ramaphosa said South Africa would not impose new restrictions, but would “undertake broad consultations on making vaccination mandatory for specific activities and locations”.
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