Link to article: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/un-chief-concerned-about-southern-africa-isolation-over-omicron-2021-11-29/
On monday, November 29, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres showed concern over the response of countries like the U.S. and U.K. to the Omicron variant. The new COVID variant was first discovered in South Africa, and the aforementioned countries have started implementing travel restrictions. Guterres advocated for repeated testing as opposed to bans, and blamed Africa’s lack of vaccines as the cause for the variant. The African continent has had a lack of access to vaccines, causing new variants to be created.
From my perspective, all parties are behaving logically. Guterres does not want a complete shut off of South Africa, as it could cause major economic issues like what was seen when COVID first became a pandemic. The U.S. and U.K. are behaving cautiously, which makes sense considering both countries have been hit hard by COVID. South Africa is in a position where they are not able to do much: they have limited access to vaccines, and are a developed country, causing new COVID variants to develop rapidly.
This relates to international relations through Liberal Theory, and IGOs. The U.N. can be applied as any of the forms of an IGO, and so it makes sense for their Secretary-General to be speaking on this topic. The approach Guterres is going for is a classic liberal approach, asking for these other countries to forgo their short term, instinctive reactions for more rational, long term interests.