A British Columbia researcher says that banning travelers from southern African countries in an effort to stop the importation of a new variant of COVID-19 is an example of “wishful thinking” that could do more harm than good.
Caroline Colijn, a mathematician and epidemiologist at Simon Fraser University, says that the omicron variant has already been detected in countries outside of the target region and it is only a matter of time before it is found in Canada.
She says South Africa is to be commended for sequencing the omicron variant and for sharing its data with the rest of the world.
Colijn says he is concerned that countries like Canada, which responded by imposing travel bans on southern African nations, risk discouraging that kind of transparency in the future.
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Zain Chagla, associate professor of medicine at McMaster University, agrees that “blind border closures” don’t make sense.
He says the omicron variant shows that it is time for a more coordinated global response to the COVID-19 pandemic focused on ensuring that all people in all countries have broad access to vaccines.
© 2021 The Canadian Press
Reference-globalnews.ca