New Covid-19 variant Omicron cases, travel updates from around the world

Taiwan has announced tighter border controls due to the new Covid-19 variant Omicron, the island’s Central Epidemic Command Centre (CECC) announced Friday.

South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, and Zimbabwe have been added to its list of "high-risk countries" beginning Monday, November 29, the government said.

Passengers who have traveled to or transited through these six countries in the past 14 days will have to undergo 14 days quarantine at a government quarantine facility and Covid-19 testing.

Flight crew members of Taiwanese airlines returning from or who have transited through high-risk countries will also be required to undergo quarantine in a designated hotel or a company dormitory for 14 days. 

Taiwan's CECC classifies the new variant as "highly transmissible” and states the new measures aim to “reduce of the risk of the variant entering the community."

Hong Kong became the latest destination to tighten border restrictions on people arriving from eight southern African countries in response to the new Omicron variant, the government announced on Saturday. 

Hong Kong residents arriving from South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe will have to spend seven days in a government quarantine facility where they will undergo daily Covid-19 testing and be monitored by health professionals. 

Upon completion of the seven days, residents will be allowed to finish the rest of their compulsory quarantine at a designated quarantine hotel. 

They are also required to undergo regular Covid-19 testing after arrival in Hong Kong.

Non-Hong Kong residents who have visited any of the eight southern African countries within 21 days are no longer allowed to enter Hong Kong as of Saturday. Non-residents traveling from South Africa were already barred entry due to its status as a high-risk country.

Dutch police said on Sunday they arrested a couple on a plane after they "fled" from a hotel where passengers from South Africa who have tested positive for Covid-19 are being quarantined.

Dutch military police at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport "arrested a couple this evening who had fled from a quarantine hotel," police spokesman Stan Verberkt told CNN.

The couple -- a Spanish citizen and a Portuguese national -- were arrested on a plane that was about to take off en route to Spain at 6 p.m. local time (12 p.m. ET), Verberkt said.

They are not in custody but are being quarantined at another facility, Verberkt said, adding the prosecutor will decide in the next few days if they will be charged.

Public health authority (GGD) spokesperson Stefanie van Waardenburg said the couple was among the passengers on a flight that landed at Schiphol from Johannesburg on Friday.

Some of the passengers on that flight tested positive for the new Covid-19 variant Omicron, Waardenburg said. The arrested couple did not test positive for the Omicron variant.

The Netherlands is among a growing number of countries that have imposed a flight ban on the southern African region.

A 31-year-old woman has been charged with arson after allegedly lighting fire beneath a bed at a quarantine hotel in Cairns, in the Australian state of Queensland.

The woman had been at the Pacific Hotel for a couple of days, Queensland Police said, before she allegedly set fire to the room where was staying with two children early Sunday morning.

More than 160 guests were evacuated from the building as flames took hold of the upper floors. No one was injured, but police said the hotel suffered “significant damage.”

As of Sunday, none of the guests had tested positive for Covid-19, according to state health officials.

In Queensland, new arrivals from designated Covid-19 hotspots are required to spend 14 days in quarantine. Some are allowed to quarantine at home, if they meet strict requirements, including having a place to stay that doesn’t have shared access.

A South African doctor who was among the first in the country to suspect a new Covid-19 variant was making people sick says the cases she has treated so far have been mild.

 "It started with a younger generation of 40 and less, and the most predominant clinical complaint is severe fatigue for one or two days, with then the headache and the body aches and pain," Dr. Angelique Coetzee, a private practitioner and chair of South African Medical Association, told Reuters.

"Some of them will have what they call a scratch throat, and some will have a cough, a dry cough. But it's not a constant cough. It comes and goes. And that's more or less the big symptoms that we have seen."

Coetzee said she and her colleagues have not treated anyone requiring oxygen, but some have had had high temperatures, including one who was a severely ill child who had a fast pulse.

The child was treated at home and was feeling better after about 48 hours.

Appearing on CBS on Sunday, former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb noted health officials do not know if the variant will cause more severe outcomes. 

"Is this making people more ill? There's no indication that it is. And in fact, there's some anecdotal information offered from physicians in South Africa that this could be causing milder illness. Now that could be an artifact of the fact that initial cases seem to be clustered in younger people, perhaps in outbreaks around universities," Gottlieb told CBS News on Sunday.

CNN has reached out to Coetzee for additional comment. 

Japan has added Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia to its list of tighter border controls in response to the new Covid-19 variant Omicron,

It brings the total number of countries subject to entry restrictions in Japan to nine, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Saturday. 

Measures against these three countries came into place on Sunday, a day after tighter border controls were put in place for people arriving from South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Lesotho.

Travelers arriving from the nine countries, including Japanese nationals, are required to undergo a 10-day quarantine at government-designated facilities. 

In addition, Covid-19 tests will be conducted on the third, sixth and 10th days from entry. 

“The government is facing a strong sense of crisis regarding the discovery of mutant (coronavirus) strains,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters on Saturday. “We will take measures toward border control.”

Canadian health officials confirmed the country’s first two cases of the Omicron Covid-19 variant in Ottawa on Sunday. 

Both individuals carrying the coronavirus variant had recently traveled from Nigeria, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health Christine Elliott and Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore said in a joint statement. 

Both individuals are in isolation, and Canadian health officials are conducting contact tracing management, the statement reads. 

Canadian Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos issued travel restrictions for anyone who has traveled through southern Africa in the last 14 days on Friday.

The United States will know in about two weeks whether the Omicron variant is resistant to current Covid-19 vaccines, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden's chief medical officer.

He outlined the steps that are being taken to make a determination.

Speaking on NBC News on Sunday, Fauci said if the tests show antibodies from a person who has been vaccinated can neutralize the virus, then "we're in pretty good shape."

"If it looks like even at a high titer of antibody it doesn't, then what you've got to do is you've got to change and modify what the vaccine is going to be, which you can do pretty easily," Fauci said.

Face coverings will be mandatory in United Kingdom shops and on public transportation, and all travelers returning to the UK will require PCR testing starting at 11 p.m. ET Monday, the UK Department of Health and Social Care said Sunday in a statement.

These "temporary and precautionary measures" are to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 Omicron variant in the UK, the government said. It comes as the UK has detected three cases of this new variant, it announced Sunday.

An urgent meeting with the G7 health ministers will also be convened on Nov. 29 to discuss the developments on Omicron, the statement adds.

Separately, the Department of Education has told schools in England that pupils and visitors in secondary schools and above should wear masks in communal areas, though this is not considered a law, a department's press officer told CNN. These measures start Monday.