President Joe Biden had barely contained the delta COVID-19 variant when he slapped travel bans on South Africa and seven neighboring countries as he waits for more information regarding the new omicron strain.
But Biden’s decision to close the U.S. border to southern African visitors has been blasted by travel lobby groups and attracted hypocrisy complaints after he seemed to suggest former President Donald Trump’s travel bans were “xenophobic.”
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Biden’s travel ban is “symbolic,” according to public health communications expert Glen Nowak. For Nowak, a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman, movement restrictions “are far less effective” at stopping the spread of highly transmissible viruses such as COVID-19.
“We’re seeing that this new variant is in many countries already,” he said. “So it’s probably more symbolic at this point.”
Aside from the public health aspect, travel bans also set high expectations, according to Nowak. And if Biden’s does not slow the spread of the omicron variant, it could exacerbate anger, frustration, and skepticism toward the president’s divisive COVID-19 response, he said.
Biden has addressed worries related to the omicron COVID-19 variant. The president described the variant as a “cause for concern,” not “panic,” as stock markets recover from last week’s dip. He defended his travel ban as well, praising South Africa for its transparency while pledging that his omicron strategy would emphasize masks, vaccines, and booster shots over shutdowns and lockdowns “for now.” Biden is anticipated to roll out his plan Thursday.
“While travel restrictions can slow the speed of omicron, it cannot prevent it,” the president said at the White House on Monday. “It gives us time to take more actions, to move quicker to make sure people understand you have to get your vaccine.”
Biden did not believe his travel ban would discourage other countries from disclosing COVID-19 variants discovered within their borders. And he did not rule out future movement restrictions from countries that have detected the omicron strain on their shores.
But Biden’s travel ban lacks specificity and conveys that the omicron COVID-19 variant is from “certain countries,” according to Nowak.
“We’ve seen throughout this outbreak, particularly in the early stages, where we thought it was coming from one or two places [and] it turns out that the virus is actually coming from far more,” the University of Georgia Center for Health and Risk Communication director said. “Policies communicate.”
Biden and his aides have clearly assessed that the risks associated with underreacting to the omicron COVID-19 variant exceed those of overreacting, according to political commentator Costas Panagopoulos.
“I’m sure Biden’s criticisms of Trump’s decision to ban travel from China in the early days of the pandemic as xenophobic was part of the calculation, but Biden cannot afford any backpedaling on his COVID-19 response, which is a central pillar of his administration’s priorities,” he said.
“I think Biden would rather be safe than sorry at this point, and an aggressive containment strategy may be wise,” the Northeastern University politics chairman added.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki distanced Biden from his past comments Monday, adamant the president “has not been critical” of travel bans. But her remarks contrast with Biden’s previous statements and tweets.
Shortly after Trump announced his China travel ban in January 2020, Biden told voters in Iowa his opponent’s “record of hysterical xenophobia and fearmongering” disqualified him to “lead our country through a global health emergency.” Biden and his staffers then spent the next two months insisting that the then-candidate was referring to Trump’s history of alleged xenophobic conduct, including his Muslim travel ban, not the movement restrictions.
“A wall will not stop the coronavirus,” Biden tweeted that March. “Banning all travel from Europe — or any other part of the world — will not stop it.”
It was not until after that tweet that Biden and his team admitted they supported travel bans when they were backed by science, public health officials, and “a full strategy.”
“Travel restrictions can buy time,” campaign spokesman-turned-White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said. “But here, the time they bought for preparation was squandered when Trump used it to downplay, rather than ready the country for, the disease.”
Anxiety surrounding COVID-19 and xenophobia became an issue, too, in the context of variant naming conventions. “Delta,” the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet, for example, was adopted for the variant first identified in India.
The omicron COVID-19 variant was first picked up in South Africa last week, with cases reported as far as Australia and as close as Canada. Scientists are still studying the variant, but its 32 mutations could indicate high transmissibility.
The World Health Organization has denounced the U.S.’s and other countries’ southern African travel bans. The WHO contended they “may play a role in slightly reducing the spread of COVID-19, but place a heavy burden on lives and livelihoods,” according to WHO Regional Director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti.
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“If restrictions are implemented, they should not be unnecessarily invasive or intrusive and should be scientifically based, according to the International Health Regulations, which is a legally binding instrument of international law recognized by over 190 nations,” Moeti said on the weekend.
