{"id":1096449,"date":"2021-12-07T21:58:44","date_gmt":"2021-12-08T02:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1096449"},"modified":"2021-12-07T21:58:47","modified_gmt":"2021-12-08T02:58:47","slug":"south-african-omicron-discoverer-laments-knee-jerk-biden-style-travel-bans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/south-african-omicron-discoverer-laments-knee-jerk-biden-style-travel-bans\/","title":{"rendered":"South African Omicron Discoverer Laments &#039;Knee-Jerk&#039; Biden-Style Travel Bans"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsouth-african-omicron-discoverer-laments-knee-jerk-biden-style-travel-bans%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1096449&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1210677695-640x335-1.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">South African Dr. Angelique Coetzee \u2014 who discovered a new variant of \u201cCovid-19,\u201d or the Chinese coronavirus, called Omicron last month in her patients \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iol.co.za\/news\/covid19\/oh-no-not-again-dr-coetzee-on-her-discovery-of-omicron-db99e07a-0d6e-48be-bef9-7ee4f1db2a50\">told<\/a> the Africa News Agency (ANA) on Tuesday she considered the worldwide bans on travel out of southern Africa following Omicron\u2019s emergence \u201cknee-jerk\u201d and short-sighted, given the lack of information about the strain.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe world, especially England, had a knee-jerk reaction. They stopped everything even after our scientists told them that not enough is known about the variant, whether it is more transmissible or more severe,\u201d Dr. Coetzee, the chairwoman of the South African Medical Association (SAMA), told the ANA on December 7.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>Several nations across the globe announced varying degrees of travel restrictions on flights entering their borders from southern Africa in late November after the first cases of Omicron were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/healthcare-pharmaceuticals\/botswana-says-15-more-cases-omicron-variant-detected-country-2021-11-28\/\">detected<\/a> in the region earlier that same month.<\/p>\n<p>Britain, the European Union (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/africa\/eu-sources-say-no-immediate-plan-easing-omicron-travel-curbs-southern-africa-2021-12-06\/\">E.U.<\/a>), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/asia\/2021\/11\/29\/omicron-japan-bars-all-foreign-entries-for-one-month\/\">Japan<\/a>, and the United States, are among dozens of countries and regional blocs worldwide that have imposed travel bans on flights from countries where Omicron has been detected since mid-November. Those nations include Botswana, South Africa, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, and Angola.<\/p>\n<p>Other states that have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/travel\/article\/coronavirus-omicron-variant-travel-restrictions\/index.html\">restricted<\/a> travel from southern Africa due to Omicron include Angola, Rwanda, Morocco, Egypt, Israel, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Russia, China, India, Nepal, Canada, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Fiji, and the Maldives.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>The travel bans came largely in response to a World Health Organization (W.H.O.) announcement <a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/news\/item\/28-11-2021-update-on-omicron\">designating<\/a>&nbsp;Omicron a \u201cvariant of concern\u201d on November 26.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis decision was based on the evidence \u2026 that Omicron has several mutations that may have an impact on how it behaves, for example, on how easily it spreads or the severity of illness it causes,\u201d the W.H.O. wrote in a November 28 press release.<\/p>\n<p>The U.N.\u2019s public health body said at the time more testing would be necessary to understand if Omicron is more transmissible or causes more severe illness than existing variants of \u201cCovid-19,\u201d which is the name of the disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. \u201cCovid-19\u201d is also known as the Chinese coronavirus.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Coetzee <a href=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/news\/south-african-doctor-treating-omicron-124753308.html\">told<\/a> CNN\u2019s <em>New Day<\/em> program on November 30 the Omicron patients she had treated or observed in South Africa so far had presented symptoms of mild illness.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe [Omicron] patients that has been vaccinated so far have no complication [sic],\u201d she revealed.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cI have seen vaccinated people and not really very sick. That might change going forward, as we say, this is early days. And this is maybe what makes us hopeful,\u201d the SAMA chair added.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (N.I.A.I.D.), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/live-news\/20211207-omicron-variant-almost-certainly-not-more-severe-than-delta-fauci-tells-afp\">told<\/a> Agence France-Press (AFP) on December 7 the severity of illness caused by Omicron \u201calmost certainly is not more severe than Delta.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He referred to the Delta variant of \u201cCovid-19,\u201d which has been the dominant strain of the disease worldwide over the past several months. The Delta variant is considered highly transmissible and is capable of causing \u201cbreakthrough infections,\u201d meaning it may infect people after they have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Fauci told AFP on Tuesday Omicron is similar to Delta in that it is also \u201cclearly highly transmissible.\u201d He added Omicron \u201cmay be very likely more so than Delta.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is some suggestion that it might even be less severe, because when you look at some of the cohorts that are being followed in South Africa, the ratio between the number of infections and the number of hospitalizations seems to be less than with Delta,\u201d the N.I.A.I.D. director said of Omicron.<\/p>\n<p>Fauci revealed lab experiments are underway to test \u201cthe potency of antibodies from current vaccines against Omicron.\u201d He said the test results should be available in the \u201cnext few days to a week.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South African Dr. Angelique Coetzee \u2014 who discovered a new variant of \u201cCovid-19,\u201d or the Chinese coronavirus, called Omicron last month in her patients \u2014 told the Africa News Agency &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1096449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1096449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1096449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1096449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1096449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}