World races to contain new Covid variant
Skip to main content
  • Home
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
    • Book Review
    • Brands
    • Earth
    • Explorer
    • Fact Check
    • Family
    • Food
    • Game Reviews
    • Good Practices
    • Habitat
    • Humour
    • In Focus
    • Luxury
    • Mode
    • Panorama
    • Pursuit
    • Wealth
    • Wellbeing
    • Wheels
  • Epaper
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • Videos
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • COVID-19
    • Games
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Saturday
January 28, 2023

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Home
  • Economy
    • Aviation
    • Bazaar
    • Budget
    • Industry
    • NBR
    • RMG
    • Corporates
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
    • Book Review
    • Brands
    • Earth
    • Explorer
    • Fact Check
    • Family
    • Food
    • Game Reviews
    • Good Practices
    • Habitat
    • Humour
    • In Focus
    • Luxury
    • Mode
    • Panorama
    • Pursuit
    • Wealth
    • Wellbeing
    • Wheels
  • Epaper
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • Videos
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • COVID-19
    • Games
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
  • বাংলা
SATURDAY, JANUARY 28, 2023
World races to contain new Covid variant

Coronavirus chronicle

BSS/AFP
28 November, 2021, 04:15 pm
Last modified: 28 November, 2021, 04:24 pm

Related News

  • Russia's Lavrov gets controversial welcome in S Africa
  • First case of new Covid sub-variant Omicron BF.7 detected in Bangladesh: IEDCR
  • South Africa fuel tanker blast death toll climbs to 18
  • South Africa's Ramaphosa will not resign after support from allies
  • Ramaphosa's future in balance over South Africa 'Farmgate' scandal

World races to contain new Covid variant

New "Omicron" variant spreading across European nations

BSS/AFP
28 November, 2021, 04:15 pm
Last modified: 28 November, 2021, 04:24 pm
FILE PHOTO: The word "COVID-19" is reflected in a drop on a syringe needle in this illustration taken November 9, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: The word "COVID-19" is reflected in a drop on a syringe needle in this illustration taken November 9, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

Several European nations on Saturday 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 Organisation 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."

"Worrisome variant"

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-19.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said face masks would again be required in shops and on public transport.

A hospital in the Czech Republic confirmed a case of the Omicron variant in a female patient who had travelled from Namibia.

Germany confirmed its first two cases in travellers who arrived at Munich airport from South Africa.

Italy announced its first case of the new Covid strain in a traveller from Mozambique.

And Dutch officials said the Omicron variant was "probably" among 61 passengers who had arrived on two flights from South Africa a day before and tested positive for Covid-19.

People on the two KLM flights, which took off before the Dutch announced their ban on travellers from the region, were being kept quarantined in a hotel.

In the US, a White House official said President Joe Biden had been briefed on the Omicron situation and that health officials were monitoring events.

Already on Friday Belgium announced its first case in an unvaccinated person returning from abroad.

The WHO said it could take several weeks to understand the variant, which was initially known as B.1.1.529. It cautioned against travel curbs while scientific evidence remains scant.

"Draconian" measures

South Africa called the travel curbs "draconian" and on Saturday said the flight bans were "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," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The main countries targeted by the shutdown include South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini (Swaziland), Lesotho, Namibia, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe.

But US Secretary of State Antony Blinken "praised South Africa's scientists for the quick identification of the Omicron variant and South Africa's government for its transparency in sharing this information, which should serve as a model for the world", a State Department statement said.

The statement was a thinly veiled slap at China's handling of information about the original outbreak in Wuhan, which the United States has criticised as being uncooperative.

Biden said richer countries should donate more Covid-19 vaccines and give up intellectual property protections to manufacture more doses worldwide.

"The news about this new variant should make clearer than ever why this pandemic will not end until we have global vaccinations," he said.

But with memories still fresh of the way global air travel helped the spread of Covid after it first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, countries clamped down swiftly.

Australia and Belgium became the latest to act, banning all flights from nine southern African countries.

And Australian health authorities said they were undertaking "urgent genomic testing" to look for the Omicron strain in two passengers – whose trip originated in southern Africa – who had tested positive for the virus after arriving on a flight from Doha to Sydney.

South Korea and Thailand restricted flights from eight countries, as did the United States, Brazil, Canada and Saudi Arabia.

EU officials agreed in an emergency meeting to urge all 27 nations in the bloc to restrict travel from southern Africa. Many members had already done so.

The World Trade Organisation called off a ministerial conference, its abiggest gathering in four years, at the last-minute Friday due to the new variant.

Vaccine manufacturers have held out hope that they can modify current vaccines to target the Omicron variant.

Germany's BioNTech and US drugmaker Pfizer said they expect data "in two weeks at the latest" to show if their jab can be adjusted.

Moderna said it would develop a booster specific to the new variant.

Top News / Health

new variant / Omicron Covid variant / south africa

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • The Bombay blood type: A rare blood group in urgent need of database
    The Bombay blood type: A rare blood group in urgent need of database
  • Photo: TBS
    TBS Roundtable: What lies ahead in 2023
  • Photo: TBS
    BNP demands govt's immediate resignation as road march in Dhaka begins

MOST VIEWED

  • People walk with their luggage at a railway station during the annual Spring Festival travel rush ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year, as the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak continues, in Shanghai, China January 16, 2023. REUTERS/Aly Song
    Holiday trips within China surge after lifting of Covid curbs
  • Photo: Collected
    India launches world’s 1st intranasal Covid vaccine
  • A vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) booster vaccine targeting BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron sub variants is pictured at Skippack Pharmacy in Schwenksville, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 8, 2022. REUTERS/Hannah Beier
    US CDC still looking at potential stroke risk from Pfizer bivalent Covid shot
  •  A medical worker checks the IV drip treatment of a patient lying on a bed in the emergency department of a hospital, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Shanghai, China, January 5, 2023. REUTERS/Staff
    China says Covid deaths down by nearly 80 percent
  • Sean Bagley, 14, receives the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) booster vaccine targeting BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron sub variants at Skippack Pharmacy in Schwenksville, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 8, 2022. REUTERS/Hannah Beier
    Updated Covid vaccines prevented illness from latest variants -CDC
  • People embrace at the international arrivals gate at Beijing Capital International Airport after China lifted the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) quarantine requirement for inbound travellers in Beijing, China January 8, 2023. REUTERS/Thomas Peter
    China says peak Covid infections exceeded 7 million daily, deaths more than 4,000 daily

Related News

  • Russia's Lavrov gets controversial welcome in S Africa
  • First case of new Covid sub-variant Omicron BF.7 detected in Bangladesh: IEDCR
  • South Africa fuel tanker blast death toll climbs to 18
  • South Africa's Ramaphosa will not resign after support from allies
  • Ramaphosa's future in balance over South Africa 'Farmgate' scandal

Features

Snipe in flight. Photo: Enam Ul Haque

Baikka Beel: 'A world where snipe work late'

1h | Panorama
Photo: Noor-A-Alam

Pet cafes: Where love for food and animals cohabit

3h | Food
Illustration: TBS

How MFS is turbocharging national economy

6h | Thoughts
Now is the time to focus on FDI composition

Now is the time to focus on FDI composition

7h | Panorama

More Videos from TBS

Gold covered mummy discovered in Egypt

Gold covered mummy discovered in Egypt

43m | TBS World
Kajol’s road paintings bring change in Gafargaon

Kajol’s road paintings bring change in Gafargaon

1d | TBS Stories
Carew & Company witnessed a remarkable growth

Carew & Company witnessed a remarkable growth

1d | TBS Stories
Gavi may have to leave Camp Nou

Gavi may have to leave Camp Nou

18h | TBS SPORTS

Most Read

1
Picture: Collected
Bangladesh

US Embassy condemns recent incidents of visa fraud

2
Four top bankers arrested in DSA case filed by S Alam group 
Bangladesh

Four top bankers arrested in DSA case filed by S Alam group 

3
Illustration: TBS
Banking

16 banks at risk of capital shortfall if top 3 borrowers default

4
Photo: Collected
Splash

Hansal Mehta responds as Twitter user calls him 'shameless' for making Faraaz

5
A frozen Beyond Burger plant-based patty. Photographer: AKIRA for Bloomberg Businessweek
Bloomberg Special

Fake meat was supposed to save the world. It became just another fad

6
Representational Image
Banking

Cash-strapped Islami, Al-Arafah and National turn to Sonali Bank for costly fund

EMAIL US
[email protected]
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2023
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - [email protected]

For advertisement- [email protected]