Raleigh actress and family stuck in South Africa as NC casts wary eye on omicron variant
As the world holds its breath over the omicron variant, one Raleigh family has already spent four days stranded overseas thanks to the newest form of COVID-19.
Broadway actress Lauren Kennedy, who co-founded Theatre Raleigh, has been stuck in Johannesburg, South Africa, since Friday, along with three members of her family, unable to fly home after an African safari vacation.
From Raleigh, K.D. Kennedy said his daughter Lauren, his wife, Sara Lynn, and granddaughters Riley Campbell and Fiona Kelly have had 10 flights canceled over the variant. They have another pair of flights scheduled for Monday night, flying direct to the United States, and the family hopes these will go through.
“They’re being tough,” he said, noting that embassy contact was hard over Thanksgiving weekend. “It’s not a lock-down. They’ve stayed in the hotel, pretty much.”
U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis’ office has since gotten involved, K.D. Kennedy said.
South Africa was first to report the omicron variant to the World Health Organization, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. No cases have yet been reported in the United States.
The CDC referred travelers to testing and vaccine requirements and other information for international trips.
“CDC is continuously monitoring variants and the U.S. variant surveillance system has reliably detected new variants in this country,” the agency said in its omicron statement. “We expect omicron to be identified quickly, if it emerges in the U.S.”
President Joe Biden explained his decision to restrict travel from countries in South Africa that have seen “significant” numbers of cases of the omicron variant during a White House press conference Monday. He said the restrictions will not stop the variant from coming into the United States but would slow it down and give people who have not had the booster shot of the COVID-19 vaccination — or been vaccinated at all — a chance to do so.
“It gives us time to take more action,” the president said of the travel restrictions.
Biden said advisers have told him it will be a couple of weeks at least until it’s known how deadly omicron is, how contagious it is and how well existing vaccines work against it.
But he noted that the U.S. has made inroads against the original virus and that many more people got vaccinated when the delta variant appeared, which he said helped defeat that variant.
“This variant is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic,” Biden said. He said medical experts, including his chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, believe that existing vaccines will offer some protection against the omicron variant. Biden said that Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson are prepared to develop additional vaccines for the variant if necessary.
Asked during the press conference if additional travel restrictions will be necessary as the variant spreads, Biden said he did not anticipate any, especially if those who haven’t had them yet get the vaccine shots or the booster.
Wit Tuttle, executive director of Visit NC, said North Carolina doesn’t actively market in South Africa and that the region ranks 24th in the state as a source of international travelers. About 3,300 visitors came to North Carolina from South Africa in 2020, Tuttle said, not counting any state residents who traveled there and back.
Tuttle, who spoke by phone from New Orleans, where he said he was attending one of his first trade shows since the pandemic hit, said a larger result of the travel ban might be the chilling effect it has on domestic travel.
“Obviously restrictions aren’t great when we have just opened up to international travel,” Tuttle said. “Once the government said they were opening up borders internationally, we saw domestic travel pick up a little bit. It’s kind of a sign for companies to say, ‘Well, our borders are open, we should be out there doing our business.’ Or, ‘If the borders are closed, maybe we should not have our people out there on the road.’”
The restrictions could affect the travel plans of some international students in the state who had planned to go home to South Africa over winter break.
It may also curtail travel by groups based in North Carolina who had planned travel to South Africa next year for Christian missionary work, such as Baptists on Mission, a division of the N.C. Baptist Convention. The group, based in Cary, had tentatively planned a dozen mission trips to South Africa for next year to work on building an orphanage outside Johannesburg, but Richard Brunson, executive director of N.C. Baptists on Mission, said the group would not have made all those trips anyway.
Depending on how things look in April, he said, the group will decide whether it’s safe to send volunteers to South Africa in May.
“Most people who sign up for something like this are pretty savvy and not too afraid of getting COVID,” said Brunson, who added that he recently returned from a trip to Armenia. “Most of them have been vaccinated, and they’re not too concerned about COVID even if they get it, unless this variant turns out to be a lot deadlier than the ones already out there.”
The risk for volunteers making the trip, he said, “is mainly the travel part, because once they get there, they’re working in a confined area. It’s fenced in, and they’ll be safe once they get there.”
James Kiwanuka-Tondo, a professor in the communications department at N.C. State University, already had planned an informational meeting this week with students interested in taking a month-long trip to Botswana next summer. The country had confirmed at least 19 cases of the omicron variant by Monday.
Kiwanuka-Tondo said the trip would involve working with professors at the University of Botswana and studying the country’s economic and political systems and its approach to public health, especially as it pertains to HIV/AIDS.
Kiwanuka-Tondo said that despite the emergence of the new variant in Africa and a recent rise in the spread of illness there, Botswana is in better shape than some of its neighbor countries. That’s because the government engages tribal leaders to encourage people to get vaccinated, “and the people trust them, so they go and get vaccinated. “
Warm weather that allows people to be outside most of the year also slows the spread of the illness, he said.
“We will be on the lookout for any problems,” Kiwanuka-Tondo said, but he expects to be able to conduct the class next summer.
This story was originally published November 29, 2021 at 10:59 AM.