The variante Omicron of the Sars-CoV-2 And “highly transmissible“And requires” aurgent action“. This was stated in a joint statement by the ministers of health of the seven largest economies in the world, at the end of a G7 emergency summoned by Great Britain to discuss the steps to be taken against the new strain of the virus, which worries the whole world after the first cases identified outside the South Africa. Meanwhile, the European Center for Disease Control (Ecdc) announces that today I am alone 33 confirmed cases of the variant in the EU area and in the European Economic Area, registered in eight countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal. Where information on severity is available, patients are asymptomatic or just present mild symptomsNo serious cases have been reported so far and there are no reports of deaths. All those who contracted the variant had traveled to African countries, with flights that made stopovers in other destinations between Africa and Europe. The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, is working to organize a videoconference summit between the leaders of the 27 member states as soon as possible.
G7 ministers pledged to share information and meet again a December, praising the “exemplary work”By the South African authorities in isolating the variant and alerting the rest of the world. The ministers, continues the final document, “recognized the strategic importance of guaranteeing access to vaccines” also by providing “operational assistance, carrying out donation commitments and addressing disinformation on vaccines, as well as supporting research and development. “. Speaking at the summit, the Italian minister Roberto Speranza pointed out in particular that “the identification of the variant in the southern area of Africa confirms the urgent need to do more to vaccinate the population of More fragile countries. It is not enough to donate doses – he said – we must concretely support those who do not have structured and capillary health services like ours. We need to be sure that the donated vaccines come actually administered and to do so, the coordinating role of the UN and the WHO will be needed ”.
Outside the EU, cases have been reported in seven other states: Australia, Botswana, Canada, Hong Kong, Israel, South Africa and the United Kingdom. On Sunday, world governments were reassured by the words of the health authorities of South Africa, according to which the symptoms of the new mutation would be “light”. But the World Health Organization had sounded the alarm explaining that the new variant could have “serious consequences”. Meanwhile, other governments, despite protests by Pretoria, choose to prevent access to their territory from South Africa and other southern African countries. In Italy i mayors instead they ask the government to reintroduce restrictions come the obligation to wear a mask. While the Guardian reports that in the UK (11 confirmed cases so far) Scientists expect hundreds more cases related to the variant within the next week, some of which refer to a period previous the South African reporting of the variant, dated 24 November.
WHO: “Very high global risk”
“Given the mutations that can confer a potential transmission advantage for the virus, the probability of a potential further spread of Omicron globally is high – reads a WHO document sent to all member countries – Given these characteristics, there might be future spikes of Covid-19 which could have serious consequences, depending on a number of factors, including where they occur. The global risk overall relative to the new Omicron variant is evaluated as very high“. Furthermore, according to the experts of the UN agency, “the probability of a potential further spread of Omicron globally is high”, even if “to date no deaths related to the variant have been reported”.
Subsequently Sylvie Briand, director of the organization’s epidemic risk management department, speaking to France Info he pointed out that “we have defined it as worrying because all the teams of the whole world can retrieve the maximum information on this variant. It is important to have more information on this variant “. For the scholar, on the part of the WHO it was therefore “an alert so that there is more attention on this variant”. But it does not mean that greater contagiousness equates to greater danger: “Most fragile people are vaccinated in Europe – he explained – On the epidemiological curves we see very well that, even if there are many cases, the curve of deaths and hospitalizations remains much lower than we had seen in the 2020 wave. May a variant be more transmissible it does not mean that it will be more virulent ”.
As for the tools to combat these new variants, the director of the epidemic risks sector explained that “the new technologies to develop the new messenger RNA vaccines allow a faster preparation. From the moment we have the genetic sequence that needs to be used for the vaccine, we can shorten production times. It is very encouraging, it means that we are much more reactive than for other vaccines such as influenza, which takes about 6 months to mass produce the vaccines. Once we know the part of the antigen we want to put in the vaccine, we can produce it in large quantities ”.
Von der Leyen: “We need collective action”
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, invites countries to take collective action to stem the spread of the new variant, without steps forward and individual measures: “The spirit ofcollective action it is the only truly robust response to combat this pandemic and future ones. Alone collective, effective and immediate responses can work against viruses “, he said before addressing European governments and institutions, saying that” we cannot remain idle, in front of us we have urgent tasks and just as we are speaking the international community finds itself at face a new variant of Covid-19 “.
The measures: stop arrivals from southern Africa
Thus, the Japan he even decided to close the borders to all foreign visitors: “We have banned all entry of foreign citizens from all over the world from 30 November,” the prime minister told reporters, Fumio Kishida. And all Japanese returning from 9 Southern African countries where infections with the new variant have been identified will have to undergo “rigorous insulation measures risk-based “. There New Zeland did the same, allowing only New Zealand citizens to enter the country from South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, Seychelles, Malawi e Mozambique. For them, however, a period of 14-day quarantine, announced the minister with responsibility for the management of Covid, Chris Hipkins. While theAustralia has decided not to reopen international borders to qualified workers and students, as foreseen from 1 December. This is “a necessary and temporary decision”, announced the prime minister Scott Morrison.
President of South Africa: “Deeply disappointed”
The South African president Cyril Ramaphosa it is said “Deeply disappointed” for the “unjustified” decision to close the borders to travelers and asked for the urgent lifting of the bans imposed. In his speech, he spoke of the lack of scientific evidence on which to base such a decision and of unfair discrimination towards the region of southern Africa. The closures, he warned, will not be effective against the spread of the variant: “The only thing that the bans will cause is a further damage to economies of the countries involved which will undermine their ability to respond to the pandemic “. Ramaphosa then appealed to the countries that have closed their borders asking them “to urgently return to the decision before further damage is done to our economies”.
South African experts are divided on the risks associated with the new variant. According to Salim Abdool Karim, a well-known South African epidemiologist who spoke at an online press conference by the Ministry of Health, the mutation risks causing a surge in coronavirus cases in South Africa that could triple infections every day. “I expect that we will exceed 10 thousand cases per day within the end of the week”. But the president of the South African medical order, Angelique Coetzee, claims that the alarm is “excessive” and the reaction “disproportionate”: “The patients I saw had mild symptoms and recovered. No one was hospitalized and there was no need foroxygen. This reaction in the world makes no sense, ”he added.