The new Omicron variant of coronavirus, first discovered from southern parts of Africa, has now been reported across the world. The UK on Saturday tightened its rules on mask-wearing and on testing of international arrivals after finding two cases. New cases were confirmed Saturday in Germany and Italy, with Belgium, Israel and Hong Kong also reporting that the variant has been found in travellers. In the US, Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious diseases expert, said he would not be surprised if the Omicron variant was already in the United States, too.
Britain's Department of Health said the two cases found in the UK were linked and involved travel from southern Africa. One of the two new cases was in the southeastern English town of Brentwood, while the other was in the central city of Nottingham. The two confirmed cases are self-isolating with their households while contact tracing and targeted testing takes place. The British government also added four more countries Angola, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia onto the country's travel red list from Sunday. Six others Botswana, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe were added Friday. That means anyone permitted to arrive from those destinations will have to quarantine.
Many countries have slapped restrictions on various southern African countries over the past couple of days, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, the European Union, Iran, Japan, Thailand and the United States, in response to warnings over the transmissibility of the new variant. This goes against the advice of the World Health Organization, which has warned against any overreaction before the variant was thoroughly studied.
South Africa hits out
South Africa on Saturday said it was being "punished" for its advanced ability to detect new COVID-19 variants early, as several countries imposed travel ban on it due to the new potentially highly-transmissible Omicron variant. Along with South Africa, its neighbouring states—Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Eswatini, Malawi, Zambia and Angola—have also been slapped with travel bans, crippling their economies which are largely reliant on tourism.
The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) in a statement urged world leaders not to implement knee-jerk policy decisions in response to the detection of the Omicron variant. The latest round of travel bans is "akin to punishing South Africa for its advanced genomic sequencing and the ability to detect new variants quicker. Excellent science should be applauded and not punished, it said. DIRCO pointed out that new variants had been detected in other countries as well and "each of those cases had no recent links with southern Africa". However, "the reaction to those countries is starkly different to cases in southern Africa," it said. DIRCO said its officials are in discussion with the countries that have banned travel to and from South Africa to dissuade them from continuing the restrictions.
