Yesterday, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care of England, Sajid Javid, announced that the Ómicron variant of COVID-19 is already community transmission in all regions of that country. According to reports, there are 261 cases in England, 71 in Scotland and four in Wales. Despite this, the official clarified that it is too early to say if this news “will take us off our path to recovery.”
“This includes cases with no links to international travel, so we can conclude that there is now community transmission in multiple regions of England,” said Javid.Al defending the introduction of stricter rules to curb the spread of the virus, Javid told Parliament that the government “left nothing to chance” while scientists assessed the variant. In that regard, Britain announced that all incoming travelers will have to take a COVID-19 test before departure, while those arriving from Nigeria, South Africa and nine other African countries will have to quarantine in hotels to curb the spread of the new variant. To that end, the number of hotel rooms available for international quarantine will double this week and the government is “increasing this capacity as quickly as possible”, according to Javid, who said that, at this stage, the government cannot “say with certainty” whether or not Omicron will escape the vaccines, or if it causes a more serious illness.
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