WHO warns: Prepare for likely spread of Omicron.
The World Health Organisation, on Friday, urged countries not to panic but to prepare for the likely spread of the COVID-19 Omicron variant as scientists continue to study it.
Speaking in Geneva, WHO spokesperson, Christian Lindmeier, stressed that data suggesting that Omicron was highly transmissible was only preliminary.
The UN health agency repeated that it would take another two weeks before more is known about how transmissible and how dangerous it actually is.
WHO advice against blanket travel bans, except for countries whose health systems were unable to withstand a surge in infections.
“It is much more preferred to prepare your country, your health system to possibly incoming cases because we can be pretty sure that this Omicron variant will spread around,” it said.
while speaking, it further pointed out that, let’s not get completely worried or confused by individual information which are all individually important, but which need to be brought together in order to assess together.
The development comes as WHO said that it was sending a technical surge team to South Africa’s Gauteng province to monitor Omicron and help with contact tracing, amid a spike in coronavirus reinfections.