Rich countries are punishing the economies of the poor by imposing knee-jerk travel bans on an entire region of Africa on suspicion of harbouring the Omicron virus—even though we all know that it has already been confirmed in Europe and Asia. The right move, even at this late date, is to focus all the world’s energies on getting vaccines into the poorest countries: 'nobody is safe until everybody is safe.' Omicron looks like it may be a big problem, and there could be even bigger ones behind it.