Omicron Covid variant triggers travel curbs

THE HAGUE, Netherlands: A total of 61 people who arrived in the Netherlands on two flights from South Africa on Friday tested positive for the coronavirus and were in isolation on Saturday as the world anxiously sought to contain a highly transmissible new coronavirus variant.

Further tests are now underway on the travelers who arrived at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport to establish if any of them have the new omicron variant of COVID-19 that was first discovered in southern Africa.

The variant’s swift spread among young people in South Africa has alarmed health professionals. In just two weeks, omicron has turned a period of low transmission in the country into one of rapid growth.

America’s top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci has said that the new COVID-19 Omicron variant is in “fluid motion” in South Africa and the US scientists are in “very active” communication with their colleagues in that country to test the strain, get facts and find out whether or not it evades the antibodies.

The new potentially more contagious B.1.1.529 variant was first reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO) from South Africa on November 24, and has also been identified in Botswana, Belgium, Hong Kong and Israel.

It was on Friday designated as a Variant of Concern by the WHO, which named it Omicron . A variant of concern is the WHO’s top category of worrying COVID-19 variants. -(AP)

Flights banned from SA, families stuck

Johannesburg: Hundreds of foreigners on family or business trips in South Africa desperately tried to get back home on the last available flights as several nations imposed restrictions on travellers due to the discovery of the new Omicron variant of COVID-19 in this country. The UK announced on that all flights to and from South Africa and five neighbouring countries would be banned from Friday noon following an announcement that the new Omicron variant of COVID-19 had been detected in South Africa. According to the government’s decision on Friday, airlines will be allowed to operate 50 per cent of their pre-COVID scheduled passenger flights between India and South Africa, Hong Kong and Botswana from December 15.

SA Prez advances crucial Covid meeting

Johannesburg: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has advanced an urgent meeting with the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC) to Saturday, amid growing global concern about the potentially more contagious new Omicron variant, which was first detected in the country.The meeting was originally scheduled for Sunday.The meeting comes as a growing number of European countries are following UK’s lead in banning travel to and from South Africa and neighbouring countries of Namibia, Zimbabwe and Botswana, as well as Lesotho and Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), both of which are landlocked within South Africa. The latest to impose the ban are Mauritius, the US, Israel, Sri Lanka and the Netherlands.