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Comment by drdunce | Hacker News Reader

I can't believe at this point in the process, after all this experience, politicians are being so immature as to interpret travel bans as punitive action. It really undermines the amazing scientific work that's being done. By now, every country must have been on another countries red list when they've been doing comparitively worse (let alone following the announcement of a new variant). No messengers were shot here. Isolation is effective when executed properly and we're talking about potentially saving many lives.

Even as an 8yo, I understood that if I wasn't allowed to go to a friends birthday party because I had the flu, it wasn't because anyone was being mean to me!

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Except in this case everyone had the flu and the only one being kept away was the one who realised they had the flu and honest enough to tell everyone.

If it was a blanket ban like Israel, I would understand. But governments placing restrictions on just Southern African countries is just performative and intended to show their populations that they are doing something.

> If it was a blanket ban like Israel, I would understand. But governments placing restrictions on just Southern African countries is just performative and intended to show their populations that they are doing something.

What you describe happens so often, it has a name dedicated to it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism

Another example of the same... silliness was the NYC's "If you see something, say something" campaign.

Everyone has Omicron?

The point is that the variant was already present in some European countries before Southern African ones. So, to impose a travel ban that doesn't include the former group is a punitive and ineffective containment tactic developed with a prejudiced lens.

At the time of the action few instances had been identified in European countries where, due to the current Covid travel policies, they were safely isolated and unlikely to make onward travel. The new variant was however highly prevalent in the red listed countries.

This has been the same practice used all along. The action is always commensurate with the number of cases. Countries don't red list other countries based on speculation while awaiting further information (if the Netherlands has 5 cases maybe it has a million?). In my humble opinion I personally feel it would be a good idea if they did, the information isn't always fast enough - however, that would no doubt create more cries of prejudice.

The fact is, in terms of the action taken, nothing novel really happened here. Therefore, I don't see how it can be deemed punitive or prejudiced.

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