[imagesource: Ahvenas / Atlas Obscura]

Stop that, it’s silly!

A famous line from Monty Python, and also a good summary of the UK’s decision to keep South Africa on its ‘red list’.

Despite how the UK government is trying to spin it, the decision is clearly not based on science.

For example, Turkey was removed from the red list, despite experiencing more than 23 000 new cases a day in a population of 82 million.

South Africa recorded fewer than 3 000 new infections in the 24 hours prior to last night’s figures being released, with a population of around 58 million.

The COVID-19 Beta variant is supposedly central to the UK’s decision to keep South Africa red-listed, but that also doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.

In conversation with News24, Wits University vaccinologist Professor Shabir Madhi described the decision as “irrational”.

Infectious disease specialist Dr Alastair McAlpine believed the UK’s decision was not rooted in science.

“Maybe it is politics or racism, but it is not science.”

Looking at the list, it didn’t make sense how the different countries were moved around, he said.

McAlpine said there were countries with higher caseloads, and less testing and tracing than South Africa.

In short, it appears to be bereft of logic, which brings us to an iconic Python sketch and Zapiro’s comparison.

In his latest cartoon for The Daily Maverick, he has drawn on John Cleese’s famous ‘Ministry of Silly Walks’ sketch:

Spot on.

While fully vaccinated people from countries like the US, Israel, and Australia will be allowed to enter the UK without quarantine from October 4, fully vaccinated South Africans will still face that 10-day isolation period.

This is despite the fact that the Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech vaccine, which is the one the majority of South Africans will have received, has been approved and used in the UK.

Madhi said the UK’s stance “smacks of a colonialist mentality which should be condemned in the strongest terms”.

The reasoning used to determine which countries were removed from the red list appears to have been a load of bollocks at best.

Because it’s a fake Friday, let’s finish on a high with Cleese and his long-legged antics:

[sources:news24&dailymaverick]