The discovery of a newcoronavirus variant named Omicron triggered global alarm onFriday as countries rushed to suspend travel from southernAfrica and stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic suffered their biggest falls in more than a year.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said Omicron may spread more quickly than other forms and preliminary evidence suggested there is an increased risk of reinfection.
Epidemiologists warned travel curbs may be too late to stopOmicron from circulating globally. The new mutations were first discovered in South Africa and have since been detected in Belgium, Botswana, Israel and Hong Kong.
The United States will restrict travel from South Africa andneighbouring countries effective Monday, a senior Biden administration official said.
Going further, Canada said it was closing its borders tothose countries, following bans on flights announced by Britain,the European Union and others.
But it could take weeks for scientists to fully understandthe variant’s mutations and whether existing vaccines and treatments are effective against it.
The variant has a spike protein that is dramaticallydifferent to the one in the original coronavirus that vaccinesare based on, the UK Health Security Agency said, raising fearsabout how current vaccines will fare.
“As scientists have described, (this is) the mostsignificant variant they’ve encountered to date,” BritishTransport Secretary Grant Shapps told Sky News.
South Africa’s Health Minister Joe Phaahla called the travelstudies suggested the new variant may be more transmissible.
“This new variant of the Covid-19 virus is very worrying.It is the most heavily mutated version of the virus we have seento date,” said Lawrence Young, a virologist at Britain’sUniversity of Warwick.
“Some of the mutations that are similar to changes we’veseen in other variants of concern are associated with enhancedtransmissibility and with partial resistance to immunity inducedby vaccination or natural infection.”
Those worries pummelled financial markets, especially stocks of airlines and others in the travel sector, and oil, which tumbled by about $10 a barrel.
Meanwhile, the scramble to ban air travel from southern Africa left hundreds of passengers on two KLM flights from CapeTown and Johannesburg stranded on the tarmac for hours at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport before they were transferred for testing.
