Kinda just shows that South African politicians were right to say they were being punished for reporting the omicron variant.

They were, and Cyril was right when he said that the science didn't support it either. No virus as infectious as this is going to be turned back by border control (Macron did the same last year when the UK reported B1.1.7)

But before Reddit gets too sanctimonious on this, let's not forget that a few days ago this sub was full of people calling for the shut down of international air travel. Probably the same people who blamed China for sandbagging information as well

So how do we reconcile all this?

We appeal for countries to under take full disclosure as we widely recognise that those which do help? Yet the moment someone does we leap to isolate them and damage their economy in the process. What possible incentive to do we offer these countries to disclose information?

Ultimately if you game this out, then countries will simply withdraw from sequencing or just not do any (like France) and then blame everyone else

By the time you have enough cases to detect a variant, it's already spread.

Yeah.

I keep saying this, but this pandemic has proven that most people really, really suck at math; particularly math that involves very small or very large numbers.

Something that can hang out in your system for a week or two, combined with easy transmission and a developed country with airports, will have spread globally by the time you notice it - the odds of getting lucky are zero to several decimal places.

Best thing to do is have everyone that comes in from out of the country is to quarantine for two weeks. I'm not saying its easy, or even doable.

It's 100% doable, you just have to prioritize public health over money.

Pay anyone who arrives from an international trip to stay in a hotel by their port of entry for two weeks, with full room service. Pretty much every country can afford that.