When someone on Facebook suggested I read a story sourced from an Armenian news site that was a pickup from a Russian news agency, that talked about Omicron in terms of Ebola, I knew it was time to take the dog for a walk.
Before I go on, if you’d rather read something more uplifting, even if it is focused on going down, give this piece a look—fantastic stuff.
Learning Greek, one variant at a time
Just a week ago, at least in a Southeast Asia travel context, things were looking pretty positive. Thailand’s reopening was going well, with over 100,000 arrivals and Cambodia reopening. Even Singapore and Malaysia sort of opened their land crossing. Vaccination rates were ticking over and, for much of the region, it felt like most matters viral were in hand.
Not halfway yet. Photo: TypW 520.96.241, Houghton Library, Harvard University
Perhaps that is overstating things, but last week was about as upbeat a week as weeks went over the last 18 months. Then, well, we all got to learn another letter of the ancient Athenians and in no time at all, much started to fall apart.
A great wrap on this is the South East Asia Travel Show’s Omicron edition. Click here to give it a listen!
Some quick facts. On 24 November, South Africa reported a new variant to the WHO. Two days later, the WHO designated it a “variant of concern”, and named it after the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet—Omicron. In case you are wondering, the two preceding Greek letters, nu and xi, were skipped because “nu” sounds like “new” in English and “xi” is a popular Chinese surname. According to a WHO spokesperson, this follows their best practices for naming diseases in a manner to avoid “causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups.”
Omicron has an unusually large number of mutations and so there were concerns existing vaccinations may be ineffective. It was first detected in Botswana on November 9, and by today (November 30), there have been cases in Australia, Hong Kong, Germany, Israel, Belgium, Egypt, Japan, Canada, Sweden and Spain—among many others.
Time for last year’s t-shirt
Yes, as with last year, it appears the horse has already bolted. This Guardian story suggests some of the cases in the UK may predate the initial “discovery” in South Africa. This hasn’t stopped countries from banning flights from southern African nations as tourists rushed to get out of there before the bans hit. As with last year, the shutdowns are erratic, unfair, and reek of double standards, as the image below illustrates well.
Double standards are best described with an image. Image: Trevor Branch via Twitter
The shitlist though is growing. Sometimes flight bans, other times quarantine reinstatement. Cindy Fan pointed me to a Swiss government website, which started at 10 countries on November 26, grew to 15 on the 27th, 19 on the 20th and 23 on the 30th. This sort of incremental locking down is happening all over the globe.
The approach varies. Thailand this morning said they have no plans to change their approach unless the situation “becomes very critical”. For a country that has long thrown public health under the bus to satisfy the demands of some elements of its travel industry, this is no real surprise. Indonesia has banned eleven nations and is considering banning more. It has also increased quarantine to 7 or 14 days, depending on where you are coming from. Singapore is talking about backtracking, while Vietnam is mulling over a ban.
The last thing the region wants is a uniform approach to this right? I mean, they’d need an economic union or something to assist with that.
As it stands the people who are paid to know loads about this stuff (ie., not me) have been telling anyone who will listen that they don’t know a lot. They do expect to know a lot more though in about a week. In the meantime, what they do know might be bad, or might not be bad at all.
The concern is, if omicron is more contagious, evades vaccines, and proves to be more deadly, then this could be a very bad turn of events. This Twitter thread (by a journalist, not an immunologist) was about the sanest yet scary thread I saw.
Omicron is an anagram of moronic
There has already been plenty written about why this should never have happened. Vaccine distribution has always been unequal and favoured the rich world. It is outrageous that people in the West are lining up for boosters while most in Africa haven’t had a single shot. The following chart from OurWorldInData is instructive.
You can see the full animated version here. Image: Our World In Data.
There is plenty of blame to go around though. South Africa itself has a decent supply of vaccines. It also has decent supplies of misinformation and government ineptness.
So where to from here?
In a week we should hopefully have a clearer picture and the smart people in lab coats will be better positioned to advise policymakers. One would hope sensible decisions will follow.
If you’re planning on travelling out this way over Christmas, I’d be checking your travel insurance small print. Keep abreast of flights and rule changes. If, in the coming days, Omicron does turn out to be bad, expect longer quarantines and cancelled flights, if not complete lockdowns. I would not be surprised to see quarantines on all arrivals reinstated across the region in the coming days.
Hope for the best—plan for the worst—and if you find yourself reading Russian propaganda about Ebola on an Armenian website, take the dog for a walk.
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