Geneva [Switzerland]: The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday called for countries to keep calm and take “rational” measures in response to the new Covid variant Omicron. “We call on all member states to take rational, proportional risk-reduction measures,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a briefing to countries, reported Al Jazeera. Meanwhile, the Omicron was already in the Netherlands when South Africa alerted the WHO about it last week. Netherlands health officials said that the new COVID-19 Omicron was detected in the country a week earlier than previously believed. “RIVM has found the Omicron variant in test samples taken in the Netherlands earlier in November. These samples were taken in the GGD test lanes on 19 and 23 November 2021,” National Health and Environment Institute said in a statement. The Omicron variant (B.1.1.529), a new variant of the COVID-19, was first reported in Botswana on November 11, 2021, and appeared on November 14 in South Africa. It has been declared a variant of concern by the World Health Organization (WHO). The number of cases of this variant appears to be increasing in almost all provinces in South Africa. Following the emergence of the COVID-19 variant ‘Omicron’, several countries including the United States, the Philippines, Spain, Israel, Austria, Morocco have imposed travel restrictions from Africa. Besides, Canada has also banned the entry of foreign nationals who have travelled to the southern Africa region over the last 14 days.
