Travel ban

Thursday

Gavin Mortimer

Macron’s British travel ban is entirely political

Emmanuel Macron subjected France to a two-hour primetime television interview on Wednesday evening which must have been a pre-Christmas treat for the nation. Just under four million tuned in to see Macron discussing his achievements as president in what was a polished performance; not since Tony Blair has a world leader been such a consummate actor as Macron. He declined to confirm that he will be standing for a second term in April's presidential election but his people know that he will. There was one fly in the ointment, however, a buzz which has been distracting Macron for months: Covid. France is only just emerging from a 'fifth wave' of the virus which last month prompted the government to launch its booster campaign and, among other measures, close nightclubs.

Sunday

Alberto Giubilini and Julian Savulescu

The ethics of the Omicron travel ban

The Omicron variant had not even been named when the government’s reflexes sprung into almost involuntary reaction last month, and it introduced yet more Covid restrictions. The ‘red list’ was immediately revived and South Africa was placed on it. All travellers from there and several other African countries were soon forced into expensive quarantine hotels to live on microwaved mush for ten days. Some European countries even banned flights from southern Africa, while, in turn, Switzerland responded to the first cases of Omicron in Britain by banning unvaccinated Brits from entering the country. Whenever Covid rebounds, the first thing to happen is that international borders are closed.

Sunday

Grace Curley

How’s ‘shutting down the virus’ going, Joe?

From our US edition

We are less than a month away from entering 2022 — so why does it feel like March 2020 all over again? Cable news networks are obsessively covering the new Omicron variant of Covid-19. They are hellbent on scaring the daylights out of any unsuspecting viewer who accidentally flips onto their programs. To be fair, the media is taking cues from the president. According to the Washington Post, the Biden administration is reportedly weighing up a seven-day self-quarantine for all travelers arriving on our shores, regardless of vaccination status, including US citizens and permanent residents. Travel bans, which fell out of fashion in the Trump years because they were "xenophobic", are suddenly back in vogue. It all begs the question: didn’t Joe Biden promise to shut down the virus?

biden quarantine

Monday

Victor Davis Hanson

The thin facade of authority

From our US edition

The virus will teach us many things, but one lesson has already been relearned by the American people: there are two, quite different, types of wisdom. One, and the most renowned, is a specialization in education that results in titled degrees and presumed authority. That ensuing prestige, in turn, dictates the decisions of most politicians, the media, and public officials — who for the most part share the values and confidence of the credentialed elite. The other wisdom is not, as commonly caricatured, know-nothingism. Indeed, Americans have always believed in self-improvement and the advantages of higher education, a trust that explained broad public 19th-century support for mandatory elementary and secondary schooling and, during the postwar era, the G.I. Bill.

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