As omicron spreads around the world, countries are adopting ineffective and divisive strategies. What’s really needed is cooperation.

As the world learned of the omicron variant of the coronavirus last week, Western leaders responded in predictably counterproductive ways, banning flights to the region of Africa where the variant was first discovered—but too late to stop it from spreading around the world. It remains to be seen whether omicron is so dangerous that it will cause disease and deaths to spike and send us back to an earlier stage of the pandemic.

But even if omicron isn’t the worst-case scenario, the worst-case scenario will come sooner or later, and fighting it will require international cooperation on a scale we haven’t yet witnessed. Instead, we’re seeing more of the same panic responses that characterized earlier Covid-19 waves. Read more at The New Republic.