SCHIPHOL, the Netherlands: Several European nations announced their first cases of a highly infectious new coronavirus strain, as governments worldwide began pulling down the shutters to contain the new Omicron variant.
Britain, Germany and Italy confirmed their first cases of the new Covid-19 strain, while Dutch authorities quarantined 61 passengers from South Africa who tested positive for Covid-19.
South Africa complained it was being punished with air travel bans for having first detected the strain, which the World Health Organization has termed a “variant of concern”. A series of countries across the world began restricting travel from the region, to try to head off any threat to global efforts against the pandemic.
Scientists are racing to determine the threat posed by the heavily mutated strain, particularly whether it can evade existing vaccines. It has already proved to be more transmissible than the dominant Delta variant.
Travellers thronged Johannesburg international airport, desperate to squeeze onto the last flights to countries that had imposed sudden travel bans. Many of these people had cut short holidays, rushing back from South African safaris and vineyards. “It’s ridiculous, we will always be having new variants’’, British tourist David Good told AFP, passport in hand. “South Africa found it, but it’s probably all over the world already.”
The virus has already slipped through the net, with cases discovered in Europe, Hong Kong and Israel and in southern Arica.
Britain on Saturday announced tougher entry rules for all arriving passengers and the return of a mask mandate, after confirming its first two cases of the new Omicron strain of Covid. SEE ALSO P5
