Major backlash as door slams shut on Southern Africa
Publish date: 29 November 2021
Issue Number: 952
Diary: IBA Legalbrief Africa
Category: Covid-19 crisis
‘This variant has been reported at a remarkable speed. The WHO is grateful to the South African researchers, and it’s been outstanding how open and transparent they have been.’
– WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier
More than 50 years after SA carried out the world’s first successful human heart transplant, it finds itself back in the medical spotlight after its scientists identified the new coronavirus variant, Omicron, which is spreading across the planet. It has been classed as a ‘variant of concern’ and early evidence suggests it has a higher re-infection risk. The WHO said it would take a few weeks to understand the impact of the new variant, as scientists worked to determine how transmissible it was. With bitter irony, notes Legalbrief, the announcement has been met by a crushing travel ban for SA – in defiance of WHO guidelines – and its neighbours which have paid a heavy price for a pandemic that had its origins a continent away. Countries that have imposed travel restrictions on SA and other southern African nations include Australia, Brazil, Canada, EU member states, Oman, Sri Lanka, Turkey and the UAE. Soon after borders were closed to African travellers, countries around the world have closed borders to each other and implemented strict quarantines.
With immediate effect, travellers from Angola, Botswana, eSwatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, SA and Zimbabwe will not be able to enter the UK unless they are UK or Irish nationals, or UK residents. BBC News reports that US officials said nationals from these countries would be blocked from travelling from today. Australia on Saturday announced that flights from these countries, and the Seychelles, will be suspended for 14 days. Non-Australians who have been in those countries in the past two weeks are now banned from entering Australia. Japan has announced that travellers from much of southern Africa will need to quarantine for 10 days and take a total of four tests during that time. India has ordered more rigorous screening and testing for travellers arriving from SA, Botswana and Hong Kong. Canada is barring all foreign nationals who have travelled through SA, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, eSwatini or Mozambique in the past 14 days.
President Cyril Ramaphosa last night slammed the restrictions, saying they are ‘unjustified and unfairly discriminate against our country and our southern African sister countries’. ‘The prohibition of travel is not informed by science, nor will it be effective in preventing the spread of this variant. 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,’ Ramaphosa said. A report on the News24 site notes that Ramaphosa also described the emergence of the Omicron variant as a wake-up call for the world regarding vaccine inequality – warning that until everyone was vaccinated, more variants were inevitable. The Daily Maverick reports that Ramaphosa said SA will remain at Alert Level 1, at least for the next week, after the country experienced a sharp and sudden increase in positive coronavirus cases. In addition, he dangled the prospect of no further restrictions to South Africans if enough people get vaccinated – and added that a task team will investigate mandatory vaccines.
SA’s Foreign Ministry has also strongly criticised the bans, noting that ‘excellent science should be applauded and not punished’. It said the bans were ‘akin to punishing SA for its advanced genomic sequencing and the ability to detect new variants quicker’. It noted the reaction had been completely different when new variants were discovered elsewhere in the world. An AU official told the BBC developed countries were to blame for the emergence of the variant. ‘What is going on right now is inevitable; it's a result of the world's failure to vaccinate in an equitable, urgent and speedy manner. It is as a result of hoarding (of vaccines) by high-income countries of the world, and quite frankly it is unacceptable,’ said AU vaccine delivery alliance co-chair Ayoade Alakija. She added that the travel bans ‘are based in politics, and not in science’. ‘It is wrong. Why are we locking away Africa when this virus is already on three continents?’
Despite the inevitable doom and gloom, SA can draw some comfort from the global recognition of its handling of the latest crisis. The US has saluted SA for quickly identifying the new Covid-19 strain and sharing the information with the world – a barely veiled slap at China's handling of the original outbreak of the novel coronavirus. BusinessTech reports that WHO Head of Emergencies Michael Ryan stressed the importance of waiting for more data on the Omicron variant. ‘We've seen in the past, the minute there's any kind of mention of any kind of variation and everyone is closing borders and restricting travel. It's really important that we remain open, and stay focused,’ Ryan said. In her response, SA's Department of International Relations and Co-operation Minister Naledi Pandor, said while Pretoria respected the right of all countries to take the necessary precautionary measures to protect their citizens, ‘we need to remember that this pandemic requires collaboration and sharing of expertise’. ‘Our immediate concern is the damage that these restrictions are causing to families, the travel and tourism industries and business,’ she added.
Details of how SA cracked the Omicron code have now emerged. Junior scientist Alicia Vermeulen, who works at a Lancet Laboratories facility in Pretoria, this month spotted an anomaly in one positive test result in the roughly 300 tests the lab had processed that day. The test had not picked up a specific gene that is looked for to confirm whether the SARS-Cov-2 virus is present in a sample, the S-gene – which creates the spike protein. She was unaware that her observation would set in motion a chain of events that would eventually lead to the discovery that the new coronavirus variant which has led to global fears. A report on the News24 site notes that the existence of the B1.1.529 variant was first officially confirmed by SA scientist Professor Tulio de Oliveira on 25 November, however, the first samples were sequenced by the Botswana-Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership in Botswana, and in Hong Kong as early as 11 and 13 November. The Hong Kong case was in a quarantined man who had returned home on 11 November after travelling to SA on 23 October.
In other developments:
* Rwanda today became the first country in Sub-Saharan Africa to impose a ban on inbound and outbound flights to southern African countries in the wake of the new Covid-19 variant. Prime Minister Édouard Ngirente said that after an extraordinary Cabinet meeting, it was resolved that ‘direct flights between Rwanda and southern Africa are temporarily suspended’.
* Fearful investors have fled stocks worldwide and flocked to havens such as sovereign bonds as volatility spiked. The window for more clarity on omicron to emerge may be two to eight weeks, during which demand for riskier assets could take a hit, according to Citigroup strategists, including Jamie Fahy and Yasmin Younes.
* Every adult in the UK will be offered a third Covid-19 jab within weeks to combat the Omicron variant as '75 probable UK cases' are probed.
* Israel is barring entry to all foreign nationals and Morocco is suspending all incoming flights for two weeks.
* The UK has called for an emergency meeting of the G7 group of nations to discuss the new variant today.
* Canada has confirmed two cases of Omicron in Ontario in travellers from Nigeria.
* Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been roasted on Twitter after falsely claiming that South Africans carrying the new Omicron variant have been apprehended crossing into the US illegally. Abbott, who has run for office on an anti-immigration ticket, blamed President Joe Biden for ‘doing nothing’ from stopping immigrants from SA crossing into the US illegally.
