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International passengers arrive at Melbourne Airport after Australia reopened its international borders to vaccinated travelers.
Hard Numbers: Australia reopens, Somali suicide blast, Queen tests positive, Credit Suisse leak, Indian death sentences
23: Australia reopened on Monday to (vaccinated) foreign travelers 23 months after closing its international borders. Restrictions gradually eased for citizens last year, but the latest move is great news for long-separated loved ones and Australian tourism.
2: Elizabeth II is still performing "light duties" at Buckingham Palace despite experiencing mild COVID symptoms. The British queen turns 96 in April. Her heir, Prince Charles, tested positive two days after meeting with the queen earlier this month.
13: Thirteen people were killed Saturday by a suicide bomber targeting government official and politicians in central Somalia. The al-Shabab militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, carried out during a long-delayed parliamentary election, the first round of which ends on Friday.
18,000: A whistleblower leaked data on more than 18,000 (mostly historical) Credit Suisse accounts that held more than $100 billion. The account holders reportedly included world leaders such as Jordan's King Abdullah II and the sons of a Pakistani intelligence chief who sent CIA funds to the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s. The Swiss bank has responded and denies any wrongdoing.
38: An Indian judge sentenced to death a record 38 people convicted of a 2008 attack by Islamic militants that killed 56 people in Ahmedabad, a city in Gujarat state. Gujarat's chief minister at the time was none other than current PM Narendra Modi. A higher court must confirm the sentences.Were the Aussies right to ban Djokovic?
You’ve probably read this week that Novak Djokovic, the world’s number-one ranked tennis player, was caught in an awkward standoff with Australian border police.
A quick catch up: Upon arriving in Melbourne for the Australian Open, one of the world’s four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the unvaccinated Serbian tennis star was denied entry by federal authorities who said he did not meet the criteria for a vaccine exemption and so does not satisfy entry requirements.
Djokovic explained that he was previously granted a vaccine exemption by Tennis Australia and the Victorian state government. The feds were unmoved.
Djokovic is no stranger to whacky health and conspiracy theories. He is a proponent of holistic healing (nothing wrong with that), but he has also said that you can make toxic water drinkable simply by using “the power of your mind.”
If you are pro-science – and/or a person who has missed out on family milestones over the past 24 months by honoring travel rules – it’s easy to criticize Djokovic, who seems to think his trophy case entitles him to special consideration. But this flare-up isn’t really about the tennis star’s predilections for natural (or unnatural) remedies.
As the highly transmissible omicron sweeps the globe, perhaps redefining the trajectory of the pandemic, many argue that vaccine mandates for cross-border travel are superfluous. Others say these requirements remain crucial to protect public health.
Here are some good arguments on both sides.
The pro-mandate camp
Preliminary data suggest that omicron is much less likely to hospitalize or kill the infected, thanks in part to the most effective vaccines. Still, the variant’s unprecedented rate of transmission means that even if a smaller percentage of infected people need medical care, the overall larger number of infected people can still fill a city’s hospital beds.
In the US and parts of Europe where vaccination rates remain sluggish, mandates would prevent non-vaccinated foreigners coming in who might place even more burden on already-swamped healthcare systems. Vaccine mandates for border crossers aren’t foolproof. But they are the best protection we’ve got in speeding the shift to endemicity.
Moreover, some vaccines still offer some protection against the antibody-evading omicron strain. This is particularly true for those who have been fully vaccinated and boosted with an mRNA shot. Indeed, the more people that get vaccinated, the less opportunity the virus will have to spread and mutate, threatening those who are vulnerable to severe illness. Requiring vaccines for all international travel will force many fence-sitters and skeptics to get the shot. Consider this: If Djokovic was told from the get-go that exemptions weren’t an option, would he still have resisted the mandate and given up his spot in four Grand Slams this year?
The anti-mandate camp
A majority of the world’s vaccinated people has received a non-mRNA shot from Johnson & Johnson, Oxford-AstraZeneca, Russia’s Sputnik V or China’s Sinopharm or Sinovac. These vaccines don’t appear to block omicron as effectively as mRNA vaccines. Sinopharm and Sinovac, which account for roughly half of all shots delivered globally, provide no protection against infection at all (though they still appear to provide some protection against severe illness). Vaccine mandates for travel become obsolete when even vaccinated people have a high chance of turning up a positive result.
Some have argued that to give Djokovic a special tennis pass when Australian citizens living abroad weren’t able to return home for close to two years is a slap in the face to those who respect rules. But public health policy should be based on science-based reasoning and logic – not driven by political principle.
Additionally, there have been some studies that show that virus acquired immunity provides broader protection from reinfection than vaccination immunity. If so, exposure to omicron, which comes at low personal risk, coupled with vaccination – a concept known as hybrid immunity – could be the fastest way to reach herd immunity (and end the pandemic), a sentiment supported by Israel’s health minister.
Ramanan Laxminarayan, an epidemiologist, told the New York Times that “the combination of vaccination and exposure to the virus seems to be stronger than only having the vaccine,” adding that India and Brazil may therefore be better positioned to deal with the omicron wave than countries that have experienced lower infection rates.
So, were the Aussies right to ban the unvaccinated Novak Djokovic? Let us know what you think.
One year since Jan. 6 insurrection; why Trump endorsed Viktor Orbán
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on the anniversary of the January 6 Capitol insurrection, Trump's endorsement of Viktor Orbán, and Novak Djokovic's avoidance of vaccination rules.
A year later, what should we call the Jan. 6? A coup attempt? A riot? An insurrection? Domestic terrorism?
I think I'd go with an insurrection, since it was the former president, sitting president of the United States who had not been re-elected, claimed he was re-elected, and called on his supporters to march on the Capitol building, and didn't stop them when they occupied it illegally. The whole “Hang Mike Pence” thing does imply insurrection. Doesn't imply domestic terrorism. Very few of them were trying to engage in political violence, though I think certainly, a few were. And a riot by itself doesn't really hit it.
But I also want to say that I'm very sympathetic to many of the people that did march on the Capitol. I mean, if your president, and the Republicans in office, and the media is telling you that the election was stolen, and you're following their exhortations to do something about it, that's actually what the United States stands for. So I blame the authorities a hell of a lot more than I do the people that hit the Capitol on Jan. 6. And I think they should sue those people, because we are a litigious society.
Why is Trump endorsing Viktor Orban?
Well, because he is the most strongly Euro-skeptic, anti-EU leader in the European Union. And Trump strongly opposes a strong Europe. We saw that with his pro-Brexit stance. We saw that with his support for Marine Le Pen in France, and it plays out with Viktor Orban. And the fact that he is a xenophobe, anti-immigration, and is an authoritarian anti-democrat, those are features, not bugs, but that's not fundamental to it, all of which is kind of embarrassing, but par for the course, for the former president.
Vaccine skeptic, Novak Djokovic was granted a medical exemption to compete in the Australian Open. Does this set a bad precedent?
Well, I mean, it sets the precedent that the world tennis organization really cares about having its number one star play in the Australian Open. They're looking for money, and they're looking for great tennis. And I mean, obviously, if you're the best tennis player in the world, you can't expect the same rules are going to apply to you as would apply to everybody else. I mean, if it works in politics, why wouldn't it work in the politics of tennis? It's kind of sad, but it will make for a better Australian Open, and I'm sure that's why they made the decisions. So, there you go. Be like Djokovic, I guess. And I wish he was not an anti-vaxxer, but that's "If wishes were horses," as they say, "even my grandma would ride."
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