Geneva: The World Health Organization has warned blanket travel bans will not prevent the spread of Omicron, as more countries rushed to impose curbs and the first cases of the new Covid strain were detected in Latin America.In the week since the new virus strain was reported by South Africa, dozens of countries around the world have responded with travel restrictions — most targeting southern African nations.
But the World Health Organization warned Tuesday that “blanket” travel bans risked doing more harm than good, just as Canada expanded its restrictions.In a travel advisory, the WHO warned the bans could ultimately dissuade countries from sharing data about the evolving virus.
But it did advise that unvaccinated people vulnerable to Covid-19, including over-60s, should avoid travel to areas with community transmission of the virus.WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was understandable for countries to seek to protect their citizens “against a variant we don’t yet fully understand”.But he called for the global response to be “calm, coordinated and coherent”, urging nations to “take rational, proportional risk-reduction measures”.
The likely futility of broad travel restrictions was underscored as Dutch authorities reported that Omicron was present in the country before South Africa officially reported its first cases on November 25.The new variant — whose high number of mutations the WHO believes may make it more transmissible or resistant to vaccines — was found in two Dutch test samples from November 19 and 23, with one having no travel history.
So far, well over a dozen countries and territories have detected cases, including Australia, Britain, Canada, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy and Portugal.Latin America reported its first two cases Tuesday — in people who travelled from South Africa to Brazil — and a first case was confirmed in Japan, one day after it barred all foreign arrivals.However, US President Joe Biden said the travel bans on just the southern African nations would stay in place, without referencing the other places where Omicron has been detected.
Asked how long travel restrictions that took effect Monday on South Africa and seven other southern African countries would remain, Biden said it “kind of depends”.”We’re going to learn a lot more in the next couple weeks about the lethality of this virus, about how much it spreads, what we have to control it, etcetera,” he told reporters.
Asked if any expansion of the travel restrictions to other countries could be made suddenly, as happened under former president Donald Trump, Biden said
“Unlike Trump I don’t shock our allies.”In Asia, governments continued Wednesday to expand restrictions, including with Indonesia adding Hong Kong to its travel ban list alongside various African nations.Hong Kong also added three more countries – Japan, Portugal and Sweden — to its highest travel restriction category after Omicron cases were discovered in those nations.
BoxMember States Launch Pandemic Accord TalksGeneva: World Health Organization member states agreed Wednesday to start work on building a new international accord setting out how to handle the next global pandemic.Countries adopted a resolution at a special meeting in Geneva, launching the process that it is hoped should result in a new agreement on pandemics.The three-day meeting of the World Health Assembly — the WHO’s decision-making body comprising all 194 member states — was an unprecedented special session on how to handle the next pandemic.
Countries agreed to establish an intergovernmental negotiating body “to draft and negotiate a WHO convention, agreement or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response”.The body’s first meeting must be no later than March 1 next year to elect two co-chairs and four vice-chairs.A progress report will be presented at the regular World Health Assembly annual gathering in 2023, with the final outcome presented for consideration at the 2024 WHA.”We need a game change in our global health architecture, so that the international community can respond to future pandemics collectively, effectively and immediately,” said Lotte Knudsen, the EU’s ambassador in Geneva, said in a statement.
“Today’s decision of the World Health Assembly will therefore make history. The situation and our citizens demand it: we need to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response if we do not want to find ourselves in a similar situation in the future.
“President Joe Biden on Tuesday said he would decide on a weekly basis whether to extend US travel bans on southern Africa, depending what happens with the worrying new Omicron variant of Covid-19.
Asked how long travel restrictions that took effect Monday on South Africa and seven other southern African countries would remain in place, Biden said it “kind of depends.”The US president, who was boarding Air Force One at MinneapolisSaint Paul International Airport, said he would see “week to week to determine what we need, the state of affairs.”
“We’re going to learn a lot more in the next couple weeks about the lethality of this virus, about how much it spreads, what we have to control it, etcetera,” he told reporters.
Asked if any expansion of the travel restrictions to other countries could be made suddenly, as happened under former Republican president Donald Trump, Biden said: “Unlike Trump I don’t shock our allies.”
