WHO tells Asia-Pacific to brace for Omicron as variant spreads

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Omicron started gaining a foothold in Asia this week, with cases reported in India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea.

A pre-departure COVID-19 testing facility outside the international terminal at Sydney Airport in Sydney

Many governments have tightened travel rules to keep the new variant out, but the WHO's warning https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/who-urges-asia-pacific-ready-omicron-driven-surge-infections-2021-12-03 to the Asia-Pacific, a region of about 650 million people, stressed that border controls could only buy them time.

Vaccination rates vary from country to country in the Asia-Pacific but there are worrying gaps. Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country and once Asia's COVID-19 epicentre, has fully inoculated only about 35% of its population of 270 million people. "We're going to fight this variant with science and speed, not chaos and confusion," President Joe Biden said on Thursday as he told Americans to prepare for a rise in infections during winter.

Shares in India, Japan, and South Korea fell on Friday after overnight losses on Wall Street, but traders will need to wait at least another week or so for answers from global health authorities on the variant's virulence or vaccine resistance. Europe's biggest economy, Germany, said it would bar the unvaccinated from all but essential businesses, and legislation to make vaccination mandatory would be drafted for early next year.

 

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