EDITORIAL ROUNDUP Business Day

Nov. 28 The Travel bans and COVID science

(Johannesburg, S.A.)

It isn’t even two months since the UK finally removed SA from its “red list” of countries deemed dangerous for travel due to Covid-19. And then it all changed.

With friends like these, one might ask, who needs enemies? The removal of that status was seen as a great victory for a tourism industry that has been on its knees since the pandemic reached SA in early 2020. The new travel restrictions are a crushing blow for people in tourism who were looking for some relief during the December holiday period.

The reaction from the UK despite little being known about the virus so far is a political act that other countries felt the need to imitate, lest they be seen to be complacent.

It is ironic that while the usefulness of travel bans is questionable, the UK has long rejected the measures that work. Its prime minister, Boris Johnson, thinks it is fine to go to hospitals or theatres without a mask. Complacency has been the one defining feature of that government’s reaction to the pandemic, and on July 19 it declared “Freedom Day”, removing precautions such as wearing masks and practising social distancing. British cases were soaring, even before the discovery of the new variant, Omicron.

The decision has brought back the prospect of SA being stigmatised again and banned from most countries for months — the previous UK ban lasted about 10 months — with the country seemingly being punished for its advances in monitoring infectious diseases and for being transparent. It is also telling that while the variant has been identified elsewhere, the UK has only targeted African nations.

The reaction was seen in leisure stocks, which on Friday slumped the most since April 2020, when SA was at the earliest and the most severe stage of the initial lockdown. Then the country had voluntarily locked itself out of the world, even refusing to export its wine, in one of the many illogical steps taken by the government then. …

… The impact of the discovery of the new variant, named after a letter in the Greek alphabet, was felt across global markets, with the rand tumbling to weaker than R16/$ for the first time since November 2020. Stocks also dropped in the US and Europe.

Part of the rand’s weakness was due to investors seeking safe-haven assets such as the dollar. While SA has been the primary victim, concerns about new restrictions and travel bans have been increasing in recent weeks as case numbers in Europe surged.

Some in SA are now starting to believe that local scientists’ renowned genome sequencing abilities are turning out to be a curse for the country. A glimpse at social media would indicate that the scientists are facing a backlash, accused of being attention seeking, holding media conferences prematurely and adding to the panic, which then exposes the country to stigma and the economic cost of travel bans.

But it is important that SA remains open and honest, though it may pay a high price for it. The secrecy about the initial outbreak in China did much damage by slowing the global response and has led to mistrust and conspiracy theories.

When people suggest that scientists should keep information under wraps for reasons other than safeguarding public health, this can only lead to a slippery slope. The politicians need to deploy all of SA’s diplomatic efforts to have these harmful, and probably ineffective, bans reversed.

Lock down the unvaccinated

At home, the government took a step in the right direction when President Cyril Ramaphosa said consultations will begin shortly about possibly introducing vaccine mandates. The unvaccinated should be prevented from buying alcohol and from accessing some public services and indoor areas.

We endorse the call by Business for SA (B4SA) that employers take steps that may include restricting their premises to vaccinated individuals and introducing mandates.

The price of doing too little is too high and SA’s economy cannot be held ransom by those who refuse to be vaccinated.