Please no Plan BA.2

The Balearic tourism minister can look forward to total recovery of tourism this year. | POOL

Andrew EdePalma27/01/2022 09:31

Here we go again. Or do we? They’re not sure about BA.2 at the moment. In the UK, this “stealth” Omicron variant is one that is “under investigation”, making it - for now - less of a concern than were it a variant “of concern”. At Son Espases, they’ve detected a dozen or so cases, a caveat being that the number could be significantly higher.

Meera Chand of the UK Health Security Agency says that “it is the nature of viruses to evolve and mutate, so it’s to be expected that we will continue to see new variants emerge”.

And so Dr. Chand has told us something that we are all well aware of, reinforcing the fact that no one can ever be certain about viruses, least of all the current Covid and its various manifestations.

There is further reinforcement of the situation in which we find ourselves.

Stuck in perpetual Covidism, the uncertainty is constant, as another variant (or sub-variant) is seemingly just around the corner and demanding a response. What might governments do with the latest? Activate Plan B-plus, aka Plan BA.2?

We know that IT, the virus, isn’t over. But how much more can we take of its endlessness and of these responses? Omicron has been the almost acceptable face of Covid, so much so that travel restrictions (save Covid passports) are being abandoned, despite it running riot.

The Balearic tourism minister can look forward to total recovery of tourism this year. Is BA.2 about to threaten all this?