 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. In the aftermath of the news of the Omicron variant emerging, the first response by many countries in the global north was to impose travel bans on southern African nations. Travel restrictions were even imposed on countries where cases of Omicron had not been detected. At the same time, countries in the global north where such cases were detected did not face such restrictions. This race's bias has led to fresh discussions on the nature of travel restrictions. How do we understand these travel restrictions during recent times and over the past year? Jyotsna Singh of the People's Health Movement explains. So let's begin with Omicron first. As we know that as soon as South Africa declared that they have detected a new variant which came to be known as Omicron, so many countries from southern Africa saw travel bans being imposed on them from rich countries from the western nations, US, European Union, Germany and all of these countries. Now that was a very, very problematic response because South Africa in very good faith and thanks to their HIV AIDS research that has gone into their building up of the health system over the last so many decades, it is because of all those systems that they were able to detect a new variant. It wasn't first found in South Africa. It was South Africans who detected it and told the world that there is a new variant. So in one sense this becomes like a discouragement to the countries and the scientists to report what is happening in their country. Though this is something which is very important as we know for the world because later we found so many countries actually had that variant, be it Australia, be it Germany, be it UK, US, Canada, it had spread everywhere. So this kind of a treatment that the South African countries, Southern African countries went through was very problematic and I mean just even I mean belaying all logic, many countries who are from Southern Africa, even if they did not detect any Omicron variant, they were barred, all the travels from those countries were banned to the richer nations and many countries which had Omicron, which it had been detected, they did not face the same ban. So there's this kind of racism, acute racism that we've seen over the past one year, two years, not just in the case of Omicron, but to be able to immediately ban flights and border closures is another thing that happens. Those kind of things which we have seen and the kind of racism it shows, we have, it just, I think COVID-19 and the whole public health measure of travel ban and border closures has shown us that kind of a thing. Now, so this is, I'm saying just Omicron has in that context, but what also happens is travel ban and border closures are a known public health measure because whenever there is a spread of infectious disease, you need to stop that spread. So we saw in the case of Ebola a few years ago, we saw during the 1918 flu how it's from certain parts of the world, certain countries had stopped people traveling from there to their own countries. It actually happened during the cholera outbreak of the 19th century also. So this is not a new thing, but what before COVID-19 at most 25% of the countries would impose a ban at the same time. In COVID-19, we've seen that almost all of them have done it. So this public health measure has actually come to be known as, I mean, travel bans have become the way of responding to COVID-19, one of the major ways. And that needs to be looked at because we do not have sufficient evidence about it. We do not know whether it is the best measure or not. Do we have alternatives or not to look into? None of that has been investigated into. So I think what last two years have shown us that we have created a particular public health response as if it can be the response to stop the spread of the virus. However, we have not investigated into it at all. We do not have evidence to support it. We do not know whether there are other measures which can be very effective, as effective or maybe more effective. So all of those things need to be looked at. How to keep players such as the World Health Organization evaluate and analyze the travel bans? What do experts recommend when it comes to the use of travel restrictions as public health measures? Who are the people who are impacted the most during such restrictions? And how are they affected? Jyotsna analyzes. Health organizations, International Health Regulations, IHR, they were framed in 2005. And we see they specifically mentioned that the countries should impose travel restrictions of border closures only if there are no reasonable available alternatives there with them. So this is a very clear commitment that the countries have to make all those who have signed IHR and most of the countries are signatories to IHR 2005. And the reason being, because as you have correctly mentioned that the vulnerable sections get affected the most, we are not talking about tourism here, even though we realize that how economies can be affected by that. But say, for example, if Singapore restricts people's movement from Malaysia, then it shares the border with them. And a lot of daily wage laborers travel from Malaysia to Singapore every day to just earn their living. You stop that kind of movement. You stop movement of refugees or you make it more difficult for refugees. And they're actually running away from ethnic conflict. They're running away from death to say the least. You stop their movement and you do not let them enter safer spaces and countries. So these restrictions are far reaching consequences for the poorer sections and vulnerable populations. I can give you an example from India. In India, the travel restriction was not only from the countries but within different provinces, it had stopped. And there was like a curfew-like situation and migrant laborers, they could not travel back home at that point of time, which was such a problem. Because I mean, it is no wonder that India is really losing out on its hunger in terms of hunger in the global hunger index. Because apart from the other policies in the past two years, the way we have treated the migrant laborers is and not letting them move, which is very important for them to earn daily living or go back home when they do not have any employment or job opportunity in the city where they came looking for it. That has created major devastations. And therefore, we really need to find evidence that the work has to be done in creating evidence. Investigations need to be done. A proper policy mechanism has to be established, which can tell us how to go about travel bans and border closures, if at all. What can constitute those measures, those kind of details? Who are the people who you cannot say that they should not be traveling at all? And if in worst case scenario, these have to be imposed, then how do you help those populations who get affected the most? And in fact, when we talk about it, for certain, the kind of measures which were there at the airport is so different than the measures that were put in place where people were traveling by local buses. A clear class difference that we saw in that manner. So if you are saying that you will test people and if they test negative for COVID, they can enter the border and they can enter the country or a province, then it has to be applicable for everyone. And those measures should be made free of cost and available to everyone. A migrant laborer cannot afford RTPCR in India, initially, which was costing up to 5000 then came down to cheaper. It is still rupees 700 right now. So you cannot expect migrant laborers to get themselves tested. You have to create those facilities where they test free of cost and then they cross and they go. So it should be the case with refugees and many other vulnerable populations. And I think if we properly work on these measures, this is what it will come to. And let us not forget that all these measures are ultimately part of the larger global policy response to a pandemic of this nature. So why do we have Omicron? Enough of scientists have come out and in open and have said it is because the African continent does not have enough vaccines. African continent has not been able to vaccinate more than 10% of its population, though that is reaching above 60% and all the other continents if we look at the average. So if you let the monopoly of big pharmaceutical companies continue and do not let vaccines reach everyone, this is what you will have. So had vaccines reached to everyone on this planet, which was quite possible, then probably we would not have had this spread and then we would not have imposed travel restrictions or something that actually initially caused a lot of panic in South Africa because they thought they will not get enough reagents for their testing and for other measures. So when WHO is saying that you need to have other alternates, if they don't exist only then imposed travel ban or border closures, we have to look at it at a global level, international level. We have to see how the pharmaceutical companies have benefited from the pandemic. They've made a killing and not let that happen. So because the alternates are possible and you don't have to go for such sharp and harsh measures which actually start to impact people's living and impact the economies. Thank you.