UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday slammed trip bans targeting specific countries and regions assessed over the new Covid-19 variant as” illegal”and” ineffective.”
“With a contagion that’s truly borderless, travel restrictions that insulate any one country or region aren’t only deeply illegal and corrective– they’re ineffective,”Guterres said at a news conference, calling rather for increased testing for trippers.
Dozens of countries assessed restrictions on trip from southern African countries after the Omicron variant of the coronavirus was first reported in the region last week.
Guterres said countries that had reported the emergence of the new strain shouldn’t” be inclusively penalized for relating and participating pivotal wisdom and health information with the world.”
He reiterated an appeal to governments to apply stoked testing measures for trippers,” together with other applicable and truly effective measures.”
“This is the only way to reduce the threat of transmission while allowing for trip and profitable engagement.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) has determined the overall threat from Omicron to be” veritably high”– but the WHO’s director for Africa has also spoken out against barring trippers from the mainland, saying it” attacks global solidarity.”
Officers in South Africa have said they’re being penalized for relating a strain that has now been detected everyplace from the Netherlands to Britain, Canada and Hong Kong, while Malawi’s President Lazarus Chakwera indicted Western countries of”Afrophobia.”