Anthony Fauci, advisor to the United States government for medical affairs, admitted that possibly the new variant of covid-19, Omicron, who was identified in South Africa, has already arrived in the United States, without being detected yet.
“I would not be surprised if it is here and we have not detected it yet. When you have a virus that is transmitted so easily and there are already cases in other countries as a result of travel, it will almost invariably end up reaching everywhere,” Fauci said in a interview on NBC.
For now, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (CDC, for its acronym in English), ensure that no cases have been detected of the omicron strain in the country.
Last night, the governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, was the first to declare a state of emergency for the new variant, which will enter into force on December 3 and will last until at least January 15.
With this measure, Hochul seeks increase responsiveness hospitals against COVID-19 by prohibiting non-essential actions under certain circumstances and expanding the capacity of the state government to purchase emergency medical supplies.
Detection of this new southern African variant worries the scientific community because it presents an amalgam of more than 30 mutations that, although some had already been observed in other variants, such as beta, this is the first time they have been seen together.
Fears of this new strain have led several countries around the world, including the European Union, to close air traffic from southern African countries, especially South Africa and Botswana.
The United States, Spain, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Singapore, Canada, Austria and Israel are some of the countries that have travel suspended temporarily or announced that they will impose restrictions.
KGE
– .
