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There’s a new Covid variant called B.1.1.529/omicron (Greek letter ο pronounced ooh) which seems to come out of South Africa. They managed to sequence it and let the world know in 2 weeks which is commendable and responsible. In exchange, a lot of countries announce travel restrictions from Southern Africa over this.

I understand the need to be proactive and I get that we don’t know much about it yet, but it looks like SA is being punished for being upfront. It happened with the other variant. They’re aware that it only slows it down but in the EU where their Covid cases are vertical, is there any point? It’s not like the pandemic was over before this.

The main thing I hope is that they listen to the scientist asking for support from billionaires and developed countries. It’s much harder to justify another lockdown, less so without support. Not sure vaccines are a problem in Southern Africa (people don’t get it until there’s a lot of cases), but we do need more collaboration between countries. We all live on the same planet after all. Imagine if this was sorted out from the start how much better things would be.

I was planning on going to Florida for a Christmas holiday but it looks like it might not be happening because of the travel restrictions. Thankfully the stuff we paid for is refundable, but I’m slightly relieved since it looks like a bad time to travel despite this.