keeping the virus out. instead... that is our goal — - to live with this virus, not to live in fear of it. globally, international travel has returned in a form. and tests have to be done. and the who continues to question travel bans as an idea. and, while the uk briefly introduced some of them for omicron, it quickly changed tack. now that there is community transmission of omicron in the uk, and omicron has spread so widely across the world, the travel red list is now less effective in slowing the incursion of omicron from abroad. 2021 taught us that travel restrictions may buy a little time, but more transmissible variants will find a way through. and so, here we are at the end of 2021 — variants spreading, unresolved disagreements over vaccine distribution, over restrictions, over travel bans — and the statistics tell their own story. more people have died in 2021 from covid than in 2020.