Another Christmas, one other Covid-19 wave, and one other string of logic-defying journey bans world wide.
France, Germany and Israel have already pulled up the drawbridge on British arrivals because of the outbreak of omicron within the UK, and different European nations are prone to observe within the coming days. Our little island feels fairly remoted, as soon as once more.
Certainly the UK has been recognized to impose sudden journey bans too. Our quarantine resort system has been one of many harshest in Europe, and the Authorities quickly introduced it out of retirement in late November to ban arrivals from 11 African nations together with South Africa. Different nations did the identical. The outcome? Omicron is (after all) all over the place.
Two years and nearly 300 million instances after the primary Covid-19 case was detected in Wuhan, you don’t need to be a swivel-eyed pandemic denier to see that journey restrictions have failed to forestall the unfold of Covid-19. The WHO itself, the worldwide oracle of Covid-19 knowledge, has repeatedly expressed concern that journey bans hurt economies and discourage nations from being forthright reporting new viruses or variants. So why do governments hold leaning on them as a primary barrier of defence?
Listed here are 5 the explanation why outright flight bans, purple itemizing and prohibitive resort quarantines – the form of restrictions that successfully rule out going someplace – must be consigned to historical past.
