South Africa accuses UK and others of ‘knee-jerk’ reaction to new variant
From WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM
South Africa has angrily condemned travel restrictions imposed by countries including Britain as “knee-jerk and draconian” as it scrambled to assess the potential for the new Covid-19 variant to unleash a deadly fourth wave.
In a heated press conference on Friday, the health minister, Joe Phaahla, said his country had acted transparently by alerting the world to the B.1.1.529 variant, which was detected by its scientists earlier this week.
But others had responded by imposing restrictions on flights to and from the southern African region that were completely unjustified, he said. The UK had announced its decision to impose a temporary ban without consulting the South African authorities, he added.
“The reaction of countries to impose travel bans are completely against the norms and standards as guided by the World Health Organization,” said Phaahla. “The same countries that are enacting this kind of knee-jerk, draconian reaction are battling their own waves.”
Scientists at South Africa’s National Institute For Communicable Diseases identified the new variant among a spike in cases in Gauteng province, which includes the cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria.
Within hours of being briefed, the South African government learned that countries including Britain were imposing temporary travel restrictions. Botswana, where the earliest sample showing the variant was collected on 11 November, was also affected, along with Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Namibia.
Since then anger has been growing in South Africa, which was hoping for a much needed holiday season reprieve from a Covid-induced tourism slump. The country was on the UK’s red list for much of 2021, despite having lower infection numbers for much of this period, and was only removed in October.
“The UK has been very short-sighted. It’s just absolutely ridiculous,” said Bryan West, sales manager of the Abelana game reserve in the north-east of the country. Only that morning, he had had two groups of guests leave early in a rush to catch flights back to Britain and Germany.
“I think the UK overreacted,” he added. “South Africa’s very safe to be in at the moment.” At Abelana, staff were all wearing masks and sticking closely to Covid protocol, he said: “We limit the number of guests on the [safari] vehicle, so there’s more space.”
Echoing his irritation, Otto de Vries, the CEO of the Association of Southern African Travel Agents, called it a “a knee-jerk reaction” that put airlines, hotels, travel businesses and travellers in a difficult situation.
The economic impact was instantaneous. The Johannesburg stock exchange had fallen almost 2% by midday on Friday, and the rand was trading at its weakest in more than a year.
“The world should provide support to South Africa and Africa and not discriminate or isolate it,” tweeted Prof Tulio de Oliveira, the director of the centre for epidemic response and innovation.
“We have been very transparent with scientific information. We identified, made data public, and raised the alarm as the infections are just increasing. We did this to pr... (Read more)
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