Geneva
\nThe World Health Organization (WHO) urged countries to boost healthcare capacity and vaccinate their people to fight a surge in COVID-19 cases driven by the Omicron variant, saying that travel curbs could buy time but alone were not the answer.
\nDespite shutting its borders to travel from high-risk southern African countries, Australia became the latest country to report community transmission of the new variant, a day after it was found in five U.S. states.
\nOmicron has gained a foothold in Asia, Africa, the Americas, the Middle East and Europe and has reached seven of the nine provinces of South Africa, where it was first identified. read more Many governments have tightened travel rules to keep the variant out.
\n\u201cBorder controls can buy time but every country and every community must prepare for new surges in cases,\u201d Takeshi Kasai, the WHO\u2019s western Pacific director, told a media briefing.
\n\u201cPeople should not only rely on border measures. What is most important is to prepare for these variants with potential high transmissibility. So far the information available suggests we don\u2019t have to change our approach.\u201d
\nKasai urged countries to fully vaccinate vulnerable groups and stick to preventive measures such as mask wearing and social distancing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Geneva The World Health Organization (WHO) urged countries to boost healthcare capacity and vaccinate their people to fight a surge in COVID-19 cases driven by the Omicron variant, saying that travel curbs could buy time but alone were not the answer. Despite shutting its borders to travel from high-risk southern African countries, Australia became the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-230827","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n