As NSW health authorities combat the state’s latest Covid outbreak – which stems from a weekend party-boat cruise on Sydney Harbour, billed as “Freaky Sunday Afrovibe: The Last Dance” – emotive terms like “travel apartheid” and “discrimination” are being used to describe new international border restrictions.
A Nigerian link is possible on the dance cruise, which ended with five people testing positive for Covid-19 – including two thought likely to have the new Omicron strain.
“Preliminary results indicate two are likely to have it [Omicron],” a statement issued late on Tuesday night by NSW Health said.
“All cases are isolating at home.”
NSW Health was yesterday urgently contacting some 140 people who signed in with a QR code before boarding the boat.
A flight from Doha to Sydney is believed to be the origin of a growing Omicron cluster in Sydney’s west.
NSW Health reported on Tuesday: “The source of this cluster is believed to be a returned overseas traveller, who arrived in Sydney from Doha on flight QR908 on 23 November. This person had spent time in Nigeria.”
A trivia night in a pub in the Sydney suburb of Petersham has sparked another 44 Covid cases, NSW Health reported this morning. There is no known link with the dance cruise.
On 27 November 2021, Australia applied restrictions to the entry of travellers from South Africa and related destinations, including:
- Lesotho
- Eswatini
- Namibia
- Botswana
- Zimbabwe
- Mozambique
- Malawi
All travellers arriving in NSW who have been in any of those eight African countries during the 14-day period before their arrival must enter hotel quarantine for 14 days, irrespective of their vaccination status. All fully vaccinated travellers arriving in NSW who have been in any overseas country must get a COVID-19 PCR (nose and throat) test and self-isolate at their place of residence for at least 72 hours.
Other countries have gone further and included Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, on the list. The UK is among countries to have done that. Travellers arriving in the UK from Nigeria must spend 10 days in hotel quarantine at their own expense and have two negative PCR test results.
Britain’s Department of Health says a number of Omicron cases in England have been found to be linked to travel from Nigeria, a country with strong travel ties to South Africa, where Omicron was first detected.
Nigeria’s high commissioner to London, Sarafa Tunji Isola, described the travel ban on Nigerians as apartheid.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today program: “The reaction in Nigeria is that of travel apartheid. Because Nigeria is actually aligned with the position of the UN secretary general that the travel ban is apartheid, in the sense that we’re not dealing with an endemic situation, we are dealing with a pandemic situation and what is expected is a global approach, not selective.”
UN secretary general, António Guterres, has said bans that isolate specific countries or regions are “not only deeply unfair and punitive, they are ineffective”.
Experience suggests travel restrictions have some effect, however. Border closures cannot stop a pandemic but they appear to buy time, and extra time can be valuable when fighting an infectious disease.
The experience of Australia and New Zealand shows that border restrictions can slow the spread of a pandemic – which is useful as vaccination rates build up. Scientists need time to study new variants of concern.
Australia and New Zealand enjoy the extra advantages of being islands, of being rich enough to afford plenty of vaccine, and of being developed enough to distribute it efficiently.
In much of the world, Covid still rages. The US Covid death toll stood yesterday at 812,205 and Britain’s toll reached 145,826.
Yet several Australian states, and New Zealand, have exemplary records due partly to border restrictions.
Take Queensland, which is about to reopen its borders.
During the entire pandemic, which has caused 2056 deaths in Australia, only seven people have died in Queensland.
Queensland’s roadmap has always planned for the opening of borders when 80% of residents over the age of 16 are fully vaccinated. Now, it’s happening.
“We can’t predict exactly when, but we know it’s going to be this week,” Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said.
“It’s been nearly two years, tragically we’ve lost seven lives, but the results have been really unprecedented compared to the rest of the world. We fought back and contained nearly 50 outbreaks.”
Take Western Australia, which sealed borders quickly when the pandemic appeared.
WA has kept Covid cases to an absolute minimum and has recorded only nine deaths from the disease.
Premier Mark McGowan says Western Australia’s plan to reopen in early 2022 remains on track. WA recently restricted access from South Australia over concerns about the new Omicron strain.
“We increased the border arrangements with South Australia because South Australia is open to Victoria and New South Wales, so because they made themselves open to Victoria and New South Wales, [the Omicron strain] could easily spread there as indeed other COVID cases strains could,” McGowan said.
WA restricts entry from most other states except Queensland and Tasmania – however, all visitors from those states must be vaccinated.
Take New Zealand, which has recorded only 44 Covid deaths since the pandemic began.
In New Zealand’s parliament earlier this week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said her country’s record during the pandemic included: “the lowest case numbers in the OECD, the lowest level of hospitalisation, the lowest death rate, record low unemployment, growth in our economy, and debt rates relative to other countries in the OECD that are still far lower. I measure our success in the wellbeing of our people, and through joint efforts, we have helped to keep them alive.”
Hard to argue with that.
Meanwhile, there’s some suggestion Omicron may turn out to be a milder variant producing little hospitalisation. Let’s all hope so – but the World Health Organisation and other medical bodies are taking it pretty seriously.
Written by Peter Needham
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