Several other countries including India, Japan, Israel, Turkey, Switzerland and the UAE also toughened travel curbs
\nnews agency
\nWashington
\nThe discovery of a new coronavirus variant named Omicron triggered global alarm on Friday as countries rushed to suspend travel from southern Africa and stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic suffered their biggest falls in more than a year.
\nThe World Health Organisation (WHO) said Omicron may spread more quickly than other forms, and preliminary evidence suggested there is an increased risk of reinfection.
\nEpidemiologists warned travel curbs may be too late to stop Omicron from circulating globally. The new mutations were first discovered in South Africa and have since been detected in Belgium, Botswana, Israel and Hong Kong.
\nThe United States will restrict travel from South Africa and neighbouring countries effective Monday, a senior Biden administration official said.
\nGoing further, Canada said it was closing its borders to those countries, following bans on flights announced by Britain, the European Union and others.
\nBut it could take weeks for scientists to fully understand the variant\u2019s mutations and whether existing vaccines and treatments are effective against it. Omicron is the fifth variant of concern designated by the WHO.
\nThe variant has a spike protein that is dramatically different than the one in the original coronavirus that vaccines are based on, the UK Health Security Agency said, raising fears about how current vaccines will fare.
\nScientists issued similar warnings.
\n\u201cThis new variant of the COVID-19 virus is very worrying. It is the most heavily mutated version of the virus we have seen to date,\u201d said Lawrence Young, a virologist at Britain\u2019s University of Warwick.
\n\u201cSome of the mutations that are similar to changes we\u2019ve seen in other variants of concern are associated with enhanced transmissibility and with partial resistance to immunity induced by vaccination or natural infection.\u201d
\nThose worries pummelled financial markets, especially stocks of airlines and others in the travel sector, and oil, which tumbled by about $10 a barrel.
\nThe Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 2.5%, its worst day since late October 2020, and European stocks had their worst day in 17 months.
\nCruise operators Carnival Corp, Royal Caribbean Cruises and Norwegian Cruise Line plunged more than 10% each, while shares in United Airlines (UAL.O), Delta Air Lines and American Airlines slumped almost as much.
\n\u2018Most significant variant\u2019
\nSeveral other countries including India, Japan, Israel, Turkey, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates also toughened travel curbs.
\nIn Geneva the WHO – whose experts on Friday discussed the risks presented by the variant, called B.1.1.529 – had earlier warned against travel curbs for now.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s really important that there are no knee-jerk responses,\u201d said the WHO\u2019s emergencies director Mike Ryan, praising South Africa\u2019s public health institutions for picking up the new variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
\nRichard Lessells, a South Africa-based infectious disease expert, also expressed frustration at travel bans, saying the focus should be on getting more people vaccinated in places that have struggled to access sufficient shots.
\n\u201cThis is why we talked about the risk of vaccine apartheid. This virus can evolve in the absence of adequate levels of vaccination,\u201d he told Reuters.
\nLess than 7% of people in low-income countries have received their first COVID-19 shot, according to medical and human rights groups. Meanwhile, many developed nations are giving third-dose boosters.
\n\u201cFailure to help vaccinate sub-Saharan Africa – still barely 4% of the population – left us all exposed to risk of a new, more virulent #COVID variant,\u201d IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva wrote on Twitter. \u201cNews of #Omricon is an urgent reminder of why we need to do even more to vaccinate the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Several other countries including India, Japan, Israel, Turkey, Switzerland and the UAE also toughened travel curbs news agency Washington The discovery of a new coronavirus variant named Omicron triggered global alarm on Friday as countries rushed to suspend travel from southern Africa and stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic suffered their biggest falls […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229779,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[388,494,959,952],"class_list":{"0":"post-229747","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-covid","9":"tag-global","10":"tag-omicron","11":"tag-variant"},"yoast_head":"\n