We’ve all heard of the Spanish flu, the pandemic of 1918-1920 that killed 50 million people. The only thing is, there was nothing Spanish about it. The first case was on a military base in Kansas. So why Spanish flu? Whereas wartime censors in belligerent countries suppressed news of the virus, Spain, as a neutral country, reported it. The news was coming from Spain, so the “Spanish” flu. One might think we’ve move beyond this kind of fallacious thinking, but not so.
News of Omicron has nations banning flights from southern Africa, even though it’s not certain the variant necessarily originated there, or if that even matters. After all, it’s already been detected across the globe. But it was South African scientists who detected and sequenced the variant, so it’s easy to ban southern Africans to show that “something’s being done.”
Much like Spain, which was tainted for being a source of information, South Africa is being punished for its contributing to medical knowledge.
The same thing happened earlier in this pandemic with the “British” variant, which wasn’t British at all, but sequenced in that country. (Ironically, the country where we know this coronavirus did originate, China, is off limits for many when it comes to critique.)
It gets even worse: at the time of this writing, the travel ban instituted by the US includes African countries where Omicron has not even been detected!
Biden himself critiqued Donald Trump for a travel ban on China at the start of this pandemic, when uncertainty reigned, and battening down the hatches made sense. It’s confusing that — with mass vaccination and improved treatments — Biden is now OK with banning travel from southern Africa for a variant whose symptoms so far are akin to the common cold.
My neck is hurting from all this whiplash. After nearly two years of this pandemic, I’ve learned that there is neither a magic bullet nor singular culpability. What gets to me are panicked reactions, like this latest travel ban.
Questionable decisions made by Western countries have stymied global efforts for vaccination, for example boosting fully vaccinated, low-risk people when first jabs lag significantly across the globe.
South Africa did the right thing by sharing its medical knowledge. Is it fair to punish it?
This is more than nomenclature; the travel ban stifles commerce and separates families. Have we learned nothing in a century?
Shana Goldberg may be reached at [email protected].
Copyright © 2021 by the Intermountain Jewish News
