Do You Get The Feeling That The World Is Spinning Out Of Control?

The Omicron variant of the Coronavirus comes at a time when the world is especially vulnerable, battered as it is by the repeated disruption to economic and social life. Indeed, I would say that the Omicron variant can very well spell the death knell to the nascent economic recovery that most nations worldwide were beginning to experience. Moreover, with so much media hysteria about this variant, it is likely that panic responses would ensue like lockdowns and bans on air travel, being announced at short notice. This is already happening as can be seen in the multiple travel bans that most countries have imposed on the African countries, from where this variant is spreading worldwide.

In addition, with so much uncertainty and confusion regarding the alleged potency or the lack of it of this variant, policymakers can be excused for acting in haste, though the public would certainly blame them as is the case in many European countries, where protests against vaccine and mask mandates are tearing the social fabric apart. Indeed, talking about Europe, it is also clear that the continent faces renewed threats from Russia and its client states such as Belarus, both of which are exploiting the fault lines among European nations and testing their unity, through manufactured migrant crises as well as an invasion of Ukraine.