Passengers wait at an otherwise empty terminal on Nov. 29, 2021, to check in for one of the last international flights out of Cape Town, South Africa, following the discovery of the omicron COVID-19 variant.
The onslaught of omicron-related travel bans will devastate South Africa’s tourism industry, increasing inequality levels and social resistance to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s economic policy agenda. The European Union and more than a dozen countries around the world — including the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel and several EU members — have imposed travel restrictions on South Africa and neighboring states upon the discovery of a new COVID-19 strain , which the World Health Organization has named "omicron." On Nov. 26, two days after South African health officials released details of the variant, the South African rand fell to 16.4 against the U.S. dollar on Nov. 26. While the rand has since slightly rebounded to trade at 16.2 per U.S. dollar, the currency remains low and in flux as worries over the strain linger.
