More government silliness — COVID travel bans — on a virus that has already spread from the banned place

© 2021 Peter Free

 

29 November 2021

 

 

World authorities' innate stupidity . . .

 

. . . is well illustrated by their repetitive (ain't learned nothin') handling of SARS-CoV-2.

 

For example, the ominously named 'omicron' SARS-CoV-2 variant surfaced in Botswana and has already spread (in known fashion) to — at the very least — Belgium, Hong Kong and Israel.

 

The fact that omicron — don't ya love that name? — (it drips menace) — has already spread out of its geographic petri dish has not stopped some nations from banning travel from (or to) southern Africa.

 

This impediment to movement being imposed, evidently, on the now long disproven hypothesis that contagious respiratory viruses can be safely kept in the equivalent of prison colonies far away:

 

 

[T]he United Kingdom has banned all travel from South Africa and five other southern African nations, namely Botwsana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe starting at noon local time on Friday.

 

Israel also announced on Thursday it was barring its citizens from travelling to South Africa. It also included Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia and Eswatini to its highest-risk travel list.

 

European Union nations also moved quickly on Friday to ban air travel from southern Africa, and the United States also said it would ban travel from South Africa and seven other African nations by non-US citizens beginning on Monday.

 

© 2021 News Agencies, What do we know about the new COVID strain found in South Africa?, Al Jazeera (27 November 2021)

 

 

Original COVID, its delta variant (and all the others in between) . . .

 

. . . have not been stopped via such means. Even audaciously isolated New Zealand fell on its head.

 

Hopefully, someday, the realization will dawn on people that the planet is an integrated whole.

 

Travel banning is about as effective as trying to coop colds up in one geography.

 

 

Overlooked (probably on purpose) . . .

 

. . . is the idea that one can do more harm than good by slamming various components of the world economy and its variegated people.

 

 

The moral? — If something is stupid and useless, Government does it

 

As a matter of fundamental principle.

 

I refer y'all back to Matthew Walter's sour essay in celebration of that unhappy reality.