South Africa might have done away with apartheid in the early 1990s, but now with the Omicron variant emerging from South Africa, the entire world has been allegedly been "discriminating" against them with their travel bans. That's what President Cyril Ramaphosa said a couple of days ago. Now, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres joined him in criticising the action as well.
What is travel apartheid?
Guterres came up with the term while speaking to reporters in New York. He said that isolating one country will not be effective. “We have the instruments to have safe travel. Let’s use those instruments to avoid this kind of, allow me to say, travel apartheid, which I think is unacceptable,” Guterres said.
Are the travel restrictions justified?
On Wednesday, he said that travel restrictions imposed over COVID-19 that isolate any one country or region is “not only deeply unfair and punitive – they are ineffective.”
“These travel bans are not justified,” said African Union Commission Chair Moussa Faki Mahamat at the joint news conference with Guterres after the annual meeting between the United Nations and the African Union.
What is the way around?
The continent of Africa has seen the least availability of vaccines and has been immunised the least. Guterres said that the only way to reduce the risk of transmission while allowing travel and economic engagement was to repeatedly test travellers “together with other appropriate and truly effective measures”.
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What is vaccine inequality?
The UN chief has been warning about the dangers of vaccine inequality around the world and that low immunisation rates are “a breeding ground for variants”. The Omicron strain was first identified in southern Africa and has now spread to at least 14 other countries including the USA.
