The Economist December 4th 2021 47
Middle East & AfricaTheOmicronvariantOmicro-aggressions
S
outh africahad a rotten 2021. Corrupt
politicians plundered covid-19 relief
funds, deadly riots took more than 330
lives and rolling power cuts hobbled the
economy. Yet South African scientists have
deservedly won praise this year. It was lo-
cal virologists and epidemiologists who
had honed their skills studying another vi-
rus, hiv, who discovered the new Omicron
variant of covid. When cases spiked unex-
pectedly, they studied samples, deter-
mined that it was a new and worrying var-
iant and—most important—shared their
findings immediately.
No good deed goes unpunished. Hours
later Britain shut its airports to flights from
South Africa and several other southern Af-
rican countries. America and the European
Union soon followed suit. Many South Af-
ricans felt they were being unfairly pun-
ished for their country’s scientific rigour
and openness. It is far from clear that Om-
icron originated in South Africa. And it is
already be spreading in the rich countriesthat have isolated the region, southern Af-
ricans complain. Moreover, the travel ban
may also be hampering the race to learn
more about Omicron by impeding supplies
of the reagents needed to study it.
South Africa continued to restrict large
gatherings and make the wearing of face-
masks compulsory well after many other
countries had lifted such rules. Partly be-
cause of this the country was, until recent-
ly, recording less than a tenth as many dai-
ly covid cases as Britain. “It boggles the
mind that people in the United Kingdom
can pile into a full football stadium and in
the United States it appears as though it’sbusiness as usual, but as soon as some-
thing happens on African soil, those coun-
tries go into a hysterical tailspin,” says Da-
vid Moseley, a freelance events co-ordina-
tor based in South Africa.
The new travel restrictions will wallop
the region’s tourism industry, just as ho-
tels, game reserves and wine estates were
preparing for their busiest months of the
year. Over December and January millions
of tourists normally escape northern win-
ters to sip Chardonnay in the vineyards
around Cape Town, sun themselves on
beaches and photograph lions and ele-
phants in game parks. Tourism contributes
about 3% of South Africa’s gdpand much
more to some others in the region, such as
Namibia (11%) and Botswana (13%).
Last year covid and travel restrictions
cut foreign visits to South Africa by 71%
and threw some 300,000 people out of
work. Because of the drop in tourism and
the imposition of lockdowns the economy
shrank by about 6%. Thousands of small
businesses collapsed, including awol
Tours, a cycle-tourism firm based in Cape
Town run by Sally de Jager. She had hoped
the uphill slog of rebuilding her business
would get a boost from a southern summer
full of bookings. But since the travel bans
were imposed her inbox has instead been
full of cancellations.
The ripples may spread far beyond
southern Africa, to countries such as Ken-C APE TOWN
South Africans feel unjustly punished for their country’s scientific rigour→Alsointhissection
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