The Africa CDC has recently taken to the global press to complain that the sweeping new United States travel ban on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan is a "structural injustice." They claim that severing these nations from the global transit network is not only an ineffective way to stop the spread of the newly declared Ebola outbreak, but that it will actually increase public health risks by stranding medical personnel and blocking critical supply chains.
To this, I must offer a polite, but firm, rebuttal: please keep your woke buzzwords out of my geopolitical epidemiology.
I was recently enjoying a perfectly adequate seasonal burrata in the business class lounge at JFK when a notification flashed across my phone indicating that a new case of Ebola had been reported in the DRC’s South Kivu province. Immediately, my heart rate spiked. Not for the people in South Kivu, of course—I am a geopolitical realist, not a saint—but for myself. What if someone from this deeply impoverished, internationally neglected region, having just navigated a complex ecosystem of armed rebel groups and collapsed medical infrastructure, somehow managed to secure a tourist visa, book a direct flight to Newark, and stand behind me in the TSA PreCheck line?
Naturally, the Biden administration did the only sensible thing a government can do when faced with a nuanced epidemiological crisis in the Global South: it panicked, reached for the largest geopolitical sledgehammer available, and instituted a blanket travel ban. It was a decisive, sweeping gesture that immediately made me feel better about touching the communal tongs at the airport buffet.
Yet, predictably, the so-called "experts" are whining. They point out that the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on Sunday, and that effectively quarantining three sovereign nations will prevent the delivery of the very resources needed to contain it.
I am not without compassion. In 2014, my wife and I spent three glorious weeks in a high-walled luxury eco-lodge in the Serengeti. I have seen the majesty of the African continent from the safety of a heavily armored Land Cruiser. I understand their struggles. But is it really a "structural injustice" that I have robust access to monoclonal antibodies while a farmer in South Kivu is currently trapped between a highly fatal zoonotic virus and a rebel militia? Perhaps. But is it also a structural injustice that I am being asked to tolerate even a 0.00001% chance of encountering said virus while returning from my son’s lacrosse tournament in upstate New York? I submit to you that it is.
Global health equity is a beautiful theoretical concept, but in practice, it is much easier to just draw a thick red Sharpie line around three entire countries and pretend they no longer exist.
Arthur is entirely correct. We cannot allow empathy to cloud our judgment, especially when that empathy might require us to coordinate a complex, expensive international medical response instead of just cancelling a bunch of visas.
The Africa CDC argues that travel bans historically do not work, as they merely drive infected populations to cross borders undetected through informal routes. They argue that Ebola is not primarily spread through casual contact on airplanes, and that the ban is entirely performative. What they fail to understand is that the primary function of a travel ban is not to stop a virus. The primary function of a travel ban is to serve as a weighted geopolitical blanket for the American public.
We must view this ban not as a punishment, but as an opportunity for the DRC, Uganda, and South Sudan to build character. By cutting off their access to international aid workers, global health experts, and vital supply chains, we are sending a powerful, empowering message: we believe in you so much, we are going to let you handle this completely alone.
I have heard the arguments that we should be sending CDC response teams, investing heavily in regional health infrastructure, and working directly with the Ugandan and Congolese health ministries to stabilize the South Kivu region. But that sounds incredibly difficult. It requires reading extensive briefing documents and acknowledging that our historical hoarding of medical patents and economic exploitation might have contributed to this very crisis.
The strategic beauty of a travel ban is that it requires absolutely zero medical expertise to implement. We don't need to sequence a genome or deploy field hospitals; we just need a guy at a computer in Dulles Airport to uncheck a box that says 'allow boarding.' It is the ultimate triumph of bureaucracy over biology.
Dr. Vance understands what the Africa CDC does not: peace of mind is a precious American commodity, and we will protect it at any cost to the developing world.
If we cave to the demands for "evidence-based public health measures," where does it end? Will we be expected to share vaccines fairly during the next global pandemic? Will we have to stop treating the African continent as a distant, abstract concept that only exists to occasionally frighten us on the evening news? It is a slippery slope, and I, for one, refuse to slide down it.
I will continue to support the travel ban. I will do so with the clear conscience of a man who has successfully outsourced his geopolitical anxiety to the border patrol, secure in the knowledge that while the structural injustices of the global health system may be profound, at least they are happening very far away from my connecting flight.