(Washington) The first cases of local transmission of Omicron were reported in the United States and Australia, as states around the world still try to contain the spread of this new variant of the coronavirus, already dominant in South Africa on Friday. and likely to become so in Europe.
In the United States, five cases of the Omicron variant were confirmed in New York state on Thursday, one in California, one in Minnesota and one in Hawaii, bringing the total of so far confirmed cases in the country to 10. .
In Minnesota, the infected person had traveled to New York, but had not traveled overseas. And in Hawaii, the patient was unvaccinated, but had not traveled, showing that the variant has started to spread between people inside the United States.
“This is a case of local transmission,” the Hawaii Department of Health confirmed in a statement.
Australia for its part announced Friday that it had detected, in Sydney, three first cases of the Omicron variant, in three students, despite the ban on foreigners from entering its territory and the restrictions on flights to southern Africa.
And the day after Singapore announced two cases, neighboring Malaysia also reported on a Friday – its first – in a student who arrived from South Africa on November 19, authorities said.
Many unknowns
Sri Lanka has also announced its first case of Omicron, again in a person returning from South Africa.
The World Health Organization (WHO) considers “high” the “probability that Omicron spreads globally”, even if many unknowns remain: contagiousness, effectiveness of existing vaccines, severity of symptoms. The new variant is now present on all continents and has been detected by around thirty countries.
But to date, no deaths associated with Omicron have been reported.
The Stockholm-based European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) estimated Thursday that Omicron “could cause more than half of infections caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the European Union by the next few months ”.
Especially since, according to a study by South African scientists, the risk of catching COVID-19 again is three times greater with the Omicron variant than with the Beta and Delta variants.
In South Africa, where the identification of the Omicron variant was announced last week, authorities have described an “exponential” spread of the virus. The new variant is already dominant there, and health authorities have reported a peak of contamination in children, without it being known for the moment whether it is linked to Omicron.
New restrictions in Germany
Never has a variant of COVID-19 caused such panic since the emergence of Delta, currently dominant and already very contagious. Around the world, announcements of drastic measures and travel restrictions are increasing.
In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Thursday a tightening of restrictions on people not vaccinated against COVID-19, who will no longer have access to non-essential shops, restaurants, places of culture or leisure.
They will also have to limit their contact, at home or abroad.
A draft law on compulsory vaccination will be submitted to the German parliament for entry into force in February or March.
In neighboring France, nine cases of Omicron have so far been confirmed. Like other European countries, France was already in the midst of an epidemic outbreak even before Omicron’s report. “The fifth wave of the pandemic is particularly strong” and “the situation is worrying”, acknowledged Prime Minister Jean Castex.
Like many countries in the world, the States of the Old Continent have decided to tighten health restrictions: border controls, ban on travel to southern Africa, compulsory mask in transport and shops in the United Kingdom, recommendation to vaccinate vulnerable children in France …
” Matter of choice ”
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres blasted “unfair, punitive and ineffective” border closures. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has denounced a “health apartheid”.
For the time being, underlined the Director General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the insufficient vaccination coverage against COVID-19 and that of the level of screening constitute a “toxic” mixture.
It is “a perfect recipe for variants to reproduce and amplify”, he warned, stressing that the end of the pandemic was “a matter of choice”.
Faced with the threat of a relaunch of the pandemic, US President Joe Biden presented a new plan to fight COVID-19 on Thursday, which, however, does not contain any radical or restrictive measures.
International travelers will have to present a negative test carried out in the day before their departure, tests carried out at home will now be reimbursed, but Mr Biden has refrained from taking measures that are too politically risky, in a country where less than 60% of the population is fully vaccinated.
Various laboratories, including Moderna, AstraZeneca, Pfizer / BioNTech and Novavax, have expressed confidence in their ability to create a new vaccine against Omicron. Russia has also announced that it is working on a version of its Sputnik V specifically targeting this variant.