Omicron travel bans strike South Africa’s safari business

Recent travel bans imposed on South Africa and neighboring countries in response to the discovery of the omicron variant in southern Africa have hammered the countryrsquos safari business already hard hit by the pandemicSouth Africarsquos tourism industry suffered a more than 7037 drop in foreign tourists in 2020 with Covid19 blamed for the drop from about 15 million visitors in 2019 to less than 5 million in 2020 Tourism employs about 4737 of South Africarsquos workforceBritain the largest source of tourists to South Africa lifted its ldquored listrdquo travel restrictions on South Africa in October and safari operators were beginning to see an improved outlook for the holiday season and 2022 But then the news of omicron struck bringing a new round of international restrictions on flightsSouth African President Cyril Ramaphosa has criticized the travel bans imposed by Britain and many others including some African countries as ldquohypocritical harsh and not supported by sciencerdquo He denounced the restrictions as ldquotravel apartheidrdquo South African safari lodges are experiencing cancellations and few new reservations said Fred Plachesi owner of the Tamboti Bush Lodge in the Dinokeng Game Reserve north of the Tshwane metropolitan area which includes PretoriaWith only four guests over the weekend Plachesi said his business is feeling the damage He believes the travel bans imposed on South Africa are unfair and will have a negative impact on the people of South Africa ldquoI really think itrsquos very unfair for the country itrsquos the South African people and businesses and that sufferrdquo said Plachesi He hopes that many countries will reconsider their flight bans and allow travel to and from South Africa againUKrsquos predeparture Covid test rules in forceAny travellers arriving in the UK from overseas including India have to take a COVID19 predeparture test no sooner than 48 hours before their journey under new rules in force from Tuesday aimed at slowing the spread of the Omicron variant British and Irish citizens returning from the UKrsquos red list travel ban countries ndash Angola Botswana Eswatini Lesotho Malawi Mozambique Namibia Nigeria South Africa Zambia Zimbabwe ndash are required to hotel quarantine in a governmentapproved facilitylsquoFindings have implications beyond CovidrsquoA Christmas tree made of 19000 empty vaccine containers at a vaccination center in Bucharest PICAPFollowing up first doses of the AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccines with second doses of Moderna or Novavax jabs generates robust immune response against COVID19 according to a study published in The Lancet ldquoThanks to studies such as these we are now getting a more complete picture of how different COVID19 vaccines can be used together in the same vaccine schedulerdquo said Matthew Snape Associate Professor the University of Oxford ldquoEncouragingly all these schedules generated antibody concentrations above that of the licensed and effective two dose OxfordAstraZeneca schedulerdquo said Snape When it comes to cellular immunity the researchers said having a first dose of AstraZeneca followed by any of the other study vaccines generates a particularly robust response They said the findings have implications beyond Covid19 and will inform new approaches to immunisation against other diseases as yet not vaccine preventable531156No of new cases reported globally in the past 24 hours265194191Total no of cases worldwide5254116Total no of deaths worldwideSource WHOJohns HopkinsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever