South Africa has practiced and modeled good science and good sense. Dr. Angelique Coetzee (pronounced koot-see-a) was among the first to alert South African epidemiologists to what has now been named the omicron variant of COVID-19. Or, as dubbed here, the “OMG! variant.” A calm clinician, Coetzee had deduced that what she was seeing in her patients—and successfully treating—was a heretofore unseen COVID variant with attendant mild disease. Quickly were South Africa’s skilled and responsible epidemiologists alerted and the genetic sequencing commenced. And, voila: A mutation! Also a completely unremarkable occurrence in the annals, and course, of epidemics. As molecular...