South African Health Minister: ‘Absolutely No Need to Panic’ over Omicron Coronavirus Variant

South African Health Minister Joe Phaahla said on Monday there is “absolutely no need to panic” over the Omicron variant of the Wuhan coronavirus.

Phaahla objected to travel bans that the Biden administration and other governments quickly imposed against South Africa, calling them “draconian.”

“We have been here before. This is no new territory. We are now more than 20 months’ experienced in terms of [Chinese coronavirus], various variants and waves,” Phaahla said at a press briefing.

Phaahla praised South African doctors for acting swiftly to identify the new coronavirus variant and said his ministry is “doing everything possible to make sure that our health facilities are ready” for patients from the new infection wave.

“Our medical scientists, our epidemiologists, clinicians are working on studying this virus, its characteristics and its impact on us as human beings, as citizens,” he said.

Phaahla, like South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and other African leaders, objected to travel bans imposed against the outbreak region and called for the restrictions to be lifted immediately.

“The travel bans are not helping us; they just make things more difficult,” he said.

Phaala said South Africa could have avoided travel bans by staying “quiet” about discovering the Omicron variant, but “that would have been very detrimental, because our approach is not to have our citizens live in false security and for safety.”

On Friday, when international travel restrictions against his country were announced, Phaala called them “draconian,” “misdirected,” and “against the norms as advised by the W.H.O. [World Health Organization].”

“We just feel that some of the leaderships of countries are finding scapegoats to deal with what is a worldwide problem,” Phaala said.

Phaahla noted some of the European countries banning travel from South Africa in a bout of Omicron panic have much higher infection rates than South Africa, and suggested they are more likely to be the true origin of the Omicron strain.

“We don’t want to apportion blame, but just in terms of the way the virus moves as people move, it is not inconceivable that it might be possible that this may have even arisen in those countries which have been even more liberal in terms of crowds with no masks at stadiums and so on,” he ventured.