- The World Health Organization cautioned countries against hastily imposing travel restrictions linked to Omicron, saying they should take a “risk-based and scientific approach”. It would take several weeks to determine the variant’s transmissibility and the effectiveness of vaccines and therapeutics against it, WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said, noting that 100 sequences of the variant have been reported so far. People should continue to wear masks whenever possible, avoid large gatherings, ventilate rooms and maintain hand hygiene, he added.
- South Africa condemned the decision of other countries to impose travel restrictions as ‘unjustified’. The health minister, Joe Phaahla, Phaahla said South Africa was acting with transparency, and that travel bans introduced by a number of countries against southern African nations are “completely against the norms and standards” of the WHO. Phaahla called on all South Africans over the age of 12 to come forward and receive the vaccine, which he said remained a “major bulwark” against infection and severe illness.
- South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa will discuss reimposing lockdown restrictions at a meeting on Sunday, as the country scrambles to assess the potential for Omicron to unleash a deadly fourth wave. As I’ve mentioned above, the government appealed for people to get jabbed as soon as possible - only around 35% of South Africans have been vaccinated.I'm not saying that restricting travel is necessarily the right approach (though it probably is), but nothing in your comment really strikes me as compelling evidence that it's the wrong approach.
> Taking a risk-averse approach in a highly risky and uncertain situation isn't inconsistent with the WHO's recommendation to take a "risk-based and scientific approach."
South Africa interpreted the WHO's statements as being against imposing travel bans. The first sentence of your comment implies you agree that that's what they meant. It's either that, or the WHO's statements are meaningless verbiage.
This looks like the events of early 2020 repeating.
[0] https://www.foxnews.com/media/who-china-taiwan-interview
I linked fox because it was the first link to pop up but the same news was picked by several other national and international outlets across the political spectrum.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/30/senior-who-adv...
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/who-taiwan-bruce-aylward
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8172031/WHO-officia...
A very bad outcome (which we don't have enough information to rule out) is hospitals being overwhelmed with sick people, so that some patients are left untreated, with a greatly increased rate of dying as a result. The reason this is possible is because there are a large number of mutations in this variant, which might allow it to bypass people's immunity. This can make immunity acquired through previous infection or vaccination ineffective.
People that claim this kind of stuff "just makes sense" aren't taking into consideration the second order effects on human behavior that might make things even worse. For example closing outdoor parks probably made things much worse because people would meet inside instead...
Health professionals were factoring in second order effects. The problem is that there isn't a wealth of research or evidence which shows which option is more likely to work. So a lot of at least in the early days was trial/error.
What would do know is that increased mobility translates to increased cases. And so opening parks whilst much safer than being inside results in increased mobility as people need transport to/from those parks.
If you didn't have that quarantine they would be out in the wild infecting people. Not what you want when many parts of our country e.g. Western Australia had zero community transmissions.
Without some sort of travel bans there is no way you could manage that level of inflow.