Omicron Coronavirus: Fear Grips The World As Another Covid Variant Is Detected In Some Countries

The World is on red alert as new Coronavirus, the Omicron Coronavirus variant is detected in some countries.

Infoexpert24 reports that as fears mount over the newly identified coronavirus variant Omicron, governments around the world are scrambling to protect their citizens from a potential outbreak.

The new mutation, which is potentially more transmissible, was first discovered in South Africa and has since been detected in Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Czech Republic, and Hong Kong.

After detecting cases of the super-mutant Omicron Coronavirus variant, European countries have been put on red alert.

According to a report on Sunday by the World Health Organisation (WHO), Omicron, the new potentially more contagious variant of the coronavirus has been reported in more European countries after the UK, just days after being identified in South Africa.

Many countries have already imposed travel restrictions on flights from southern Africa amid fears that the Omicron Coronavirus variant has the potential to be more resistant to the protection offered by available vaccines.

But experts say such restrictions may be too late to stop Omicron from circulating globally

Countries are now on high alert even as the coronavirus pandemic has claimed the lives of more than five million people around the world.

Omicron Coronavirus: Fear Grips The World As Another Covid Variant Is Detected In Some Countries

In the Czech Republic, the spokesperson of a regional hospital in the northern Czech city of Liberec confirmed the new omicron strain in a woman.

“My colleagues from the department of genetics and molecular diagnostics confirmed the strain with 90-per cent probability after a sequence analysis.”

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis has said the woman visited Namibia and flew back to the Czech Republic via South Africa and Dubai. The woman was vaccinated and had mild symptoms of the disease, Babis added.

Lawrence Young, a virologist and a professor of molecular oncology at Warwick Medical School in the United Kingdom, said the Omicron variant was “very worrying.”

“It is the most heavily mutated version of the virus we have seen to date. This variant carries some changes we’ve seen previously in other variants but never all together in one virus. It also has novel mutations,” Young said in a statement.

The variant has a high number of mutations, about 50 overall. Crucially, South African genomic scientists said Thursday more than 30 of the mutations were found in the spike protein — the structure the virus uses to get into the cells they attack.