The United States, Canada and Saudi Arabia became the last countries on Friday November 26 to close their borders to southern Africa, where a new variant of Covid-19 called Omicron was detected, which the WHO judges ” worrying “. South Africa denounced isolation measures “unjustified” concerning her, but never had a variant caused so much concern in the world since the emergence of Delta. Follow our live.
A “high to very high” risk of Omicron spreading in Europe. In Europe, the Omicron variant has been detected in Belgium. On Friday, many European countries including the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Cyprus banned flights from South Africa and neighboring countries. There is a risk “high to very high” that the Omicron variant is spreading in Europe, the EU health agency said.
Global stock markets are falling. Fears related to this new variant have also caused oil prices to fall and lead to sharp declines in world stock markets. Frankfurt lost 4.15% at the close, with Paris recording its worst session since March 2020 (-4.75%) and London since June 2020 (-3.64%). Also destabilized, the New York Stock Exchange closed sharply with its biggest fall of the year (-2.53%).
Adaptation of vaccines? Scientists are already trying to understand the mutations of this new variant and Moderna has announced its intention to “rapidly develop a vaccine candidate” for a specific dose of Omicron. It will take “several weeks” to understand the level of transmissibility and virulence of the new variant, however, stressed the WHO spokesperson. For the European Medicines Agency (EMA), it is “premature” to provide for an adaptation of the vaccines to the Omicron variant.