William Brangham:
The information of Omicron’s arrival right here broke because the Biden administration plans to announce new journey restrictions tomorrow.
The CDC says it should quickly require a unfavorable COVID check 24 hours earlier than departure for all worldwide flyers coming to America. The company additionally reportedly has requested airways to share the names and phone info for passengers lately arriving from one of many eight Southern African nations the place Omicron is current.
However whilst considerations develop over the brand new pressure, the Delta variant stays dominant within the U.S. and in Europe. South Korea is experiencing an analogous Delta surge, reporting its highest variety of day by day infections because the pandemic started. It additionally confirmed its first identified case of Omicron, linked to passengers touring from Nigeria.
In Japan, a second individual examined optimistic for the variant right this moment. And officers blocked new reservations for all incoming flights by way of the top of December.
The World Well being Group right this moment stated knowledge on how contagious Omicron is may come inside days, and it warned once more that journey bans may do extra hurt than good.
