Countries with Omicron variant Countries with US Travel Bans Australia Botswana Austria Lesotho Belgium Malawi Botswana Mozambique Canada(within the last hour) Namibia Czech Republic South Africa Denmark Zimbabwe Germany Hong Kong Israel Italy Netherlands South Africa Spain United Kingdom
So, did if originate in Africa? Or Europe?
Last edited by YmoBeThere; 11-28-2021 at 07:36 PM.
Countries with confirmed cases are shown here...
https://bnonews.com/index.php/2021/11/omicron-tracker/
Kyle gets BUCKETS!
https://youtu.be/NJWPASQZqLc
At this point, I think it is too early to know. According to one article I saw, South Africa was on the forefront of efforts to identify new variants. It was also mentioned GB sequenced nearly 1 in 5 of positive tests. Part of the issue is you have to do the work at some point. The initial travel ban punishes a country or countries that are doing the work.
Dated data but in April of this year in this opinion piece, it notes US at 0.3% and UK at 10%.
To stem the pandemic, the U.S. needs a national Covid-19 genomic sequencing effort
By James Crawford, Jonathan Slotkin and Meg Wyatt April 6, 2021
https://www.statnews.com/2021/04/06/...encing-effort/
According to Gottlieb, 100k per week.
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/cov...he-nation/#app
The U.S. is 20th with 3.6% of cases sequenced. South Africa is 37th with 0.8% of cases sequenced. That data is cumulative so not actually what is happening this past month.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...riant-omicron/
An interesting early read of the available data: Among nations w/ multiple Omicron cases: the mutation that is being used to screen for the variant is most commonly found in the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. South Africa ranks last on this list. Note: the mutation is also found in Alpha variant, but the point stands.
https://twitter.com/DataDrivenMD/sta...58930620895232
Sheesh, maybe we should enormously ramp up our vaccine distribution to poor countries rather than penalizing them for transparency.
To be fair, though, Omicron is defined by a large series of mutations, about 50 in all, and not by any single mutation.
All that table shows is viruses with a certain individual mutation. Without more detail, it is impossible to say, but it is likely that most, if not all of them listed on that table were not actually Omicron variants.
Yes, Dr. Caballero goes in to greater detail on Twitter on how those cases were classified as Alpha and others that were classified as not Alpha and the timing of those events. I guess the insinuation is that South Africa merely gave a name to something that was already out and about but had not been "classified".
YOu should eb the next head of World Health Organization, as that is precisely its opinion.
Sage Grouse
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'When I got on the bus for my first road game at Duke, I saw that every player was carrying textbooks or laptops. I coached in the SEC for 25 years, and I had never seen that before, not even once.' - David Cutcliffe to Duke alumni in Washington, DC, June 2013
Omicron COVID variant was in Europe before South African scientists detected and flagged it to the world
Updated on: November 30, 2021 / 7:38 AM / CBS/AP
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/omicron...nkId=142329193
"Dutch health authorities announced on Tuesday that they found the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus in cases dating back as long as 11 days, indicating that it was already spreading in western Europe before the first cases were identified in southern Africa. The RIVM health institute said it found Omicron in samples dating from November 19 and 23."
I have read in several places, so it may actually be true, that the issue in South Africa is not a lack of vaccine doses but a lack of trust in the local medical system by the people there. If it is true, that seems like a difficult problem for anyone but the South Africans to solve.
Howard