Pavlovian responses like travel bans won’t deter Omicron

After nearly two years of dealing with COVID, we should have moved on from these knee-jerk, disorganized, Pavlovian-like responses to recognize that the virus is on its way to endemic. Public health officials tell us that we should expect new forms to emerge. And by the time they are detected, the reality is that they will probably already exist around the world.

This is what is happening now. We are already finding Omicron in parts of the world away from South Africa, where it was first identified. Travel restrictions are not going to stop its spread. And they will cause real harm to people and economies.

As Director General of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), you would expect me to say so. So, let me borrow the voices of others.

“It is really important that there is no knee-jerk reaction here, especially with regard to South Africa,” said Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization (WHO). “South Africa is picking up interesting and important information for which we are doing proper risk assessment and risk management. We have seen in the past that when there is a mention of any kind everyone is closing borders and restricting travel. It’s really important that we stay open and focus on flagging the problem, not punishing countries for doing excellent scientific work and being open and transparent about what they’re seeing and what they’re looking for. .

The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, “The Africa CDC strongly discourages the imposition of travel restrictions for people coming from countries that have reported this type of travel.” “In fact, over the period of this pandemic, we have observed that banning travelers from countries where a new variant has been reported has not yielded a meaningful result. Rather, implementing [public health and social measures] should be given priority.”

“These travel restrictions are based on politics, not science,” said Ayode Alkija, co-chair of the African Union Vaccine Delivery Coalition, “that is wrong… why are we locking down Africa when this virus is already there. On three continents?”

Saad Omar, director of the Yale Institute of Global Health, said, “Such restrictions are of little utility. Unfortunately, from what we know about the epidemiology of Sars-CoV-2 and the epidemiology of this type, the [Omicron] The horse may have left the barn.”

Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health and Security, said, “Travel restrictions don’t work. They stigmatize a country. So countries that have isolated and reported the virus now need to It will be punished for. Transparent. If people are punished like this with travel restrictions then what will be the implications for future forms? And we have tests, we have equipment. So, it’s not like that We are as helpless as we were back in January of 2020. ‘I don’t think travel restrictions should be introduced or even on the table.

“The Omicron variant has now been detected in many regions of the world, which enforce travel restrictions, attacking global solidarity on Africa,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO’s regional director for Africa. “Covid-19 continues to exploit our divisions. We can only better tackle the virus if we work together to find solutions.”

These are not people or organizations that are passionate about flying or have a vested interest in the airline industry. They are public health experts who understand that after the initial outbreak, travel restrictions have little effect on the spread of the virus. And the last two years have demonstrated that they are right.

International travel stopped in April 2020 and the virus spread despite assurances from our political leaders that banning travel would control it. So far, more than 260 million people are known to have been infected. Many more cases may not have been registered at all.

In the meantime, we may not be able to calculate the true human and economic cost of actually connecting the world.

Therefore, it is beyond despair that in their response to Omicron, governments around the world are once again ignoring good wisdom.

To be clear, I am not advocating inaction. We need to do the things that matter.

We all must take proven personal hygiene measures like hand washing, social distancing and wearing masks.

Earlier this month, IATA released a blueprint to help guide governments in safely reopening their borders with data-driven decisions. This includes a coherent set of health protocols and screening measures to facilitate travel while protecting public health.

And we can’t forget that once any coronavirus type is detected in a community or geographic area, contact-tracing is the most important tool for governments to control the spread. It still believes in the global COVID crisis that governments have not made much progress on this basic measure.

In the end, governments should not miss the end game, which is to make COVID vaccines available to all. The glaring disparity in vaccination rates between developed and developing countries cannot be ignored.

Less than 10% of the African continent’s inhabitants have yet to be fully vaccinated, while developed nations mock their populations for taking booster shots. The planeloads of vaccines will do far more than just travel restrictions to tame the virus.

Willie Walsh is the Director General of the International Air Transport Association (IATA)