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Prof Tshilidzi Marwala is the Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Johannesburg, a member of the Namibia 4IR task Force and the author of ‘Leadership Lessons From the Books I Have Read’. He is on Twitter at @txm1971.
Vilifying those that report incidences of the pandemic serves no purpose except to discourage openness, which is detrimental to society.
As the word Omicron entered our lexicon at the end of November, an eerie yet familiar feeling crept over me. I knew that this would mark another turning point in the pandemic and that, in all likelihood, South Africa would once again be put through the wringer. After frenzied headlines unfolded following the new virus strain being reported to the World Health Organization (WHO), Omicron soon became known as the South African variant.
A knee-jerk travel ban by the UK was followed by similar impositions by more than 50 governments, which placed restrictions on visitors from South Africa and seven other African countries.
This vilification of entire nations is all too familiar. Vilifying those that report incidences of the pandemic serves no purpose except to discourage openness, which is detrimental to society. The last two years of the pandemic have indeed…
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