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OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – The world’s main health specialists are speeding to study the whole lot they will a few probably harmful new COVID-19 variant, and though there’s no concrete knowledge that implies it’s any extra contagious or extreme, the medical group isn’t taking any probabilities.
The White House has since responded by limiting journey from South Africa and different surrounding international locations, efficient Monday.
The Omicron variant, previously referred to as B.1.1.529, was named by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday.
Dr. Mary Clarke from the Oklahoma State Medical Association says it has been present in a number of international locations, together with Botswana, Belgium, Hong Kong and Israel.
“[We’ve seen] a dramatic peak, it is a very sharp uptick,” she stated. “That makes us concerned that it is a lot more easy to be contagious.”
She additionally says it’s when — not if — the variant makes its manner to the United States.
“It would be impossible not to be in the U.S. [at some point],” she stated. “It is entirely possible we already have cases in the U.S. today [and] we just don’t know it yet; if it is spreading as quickly as the concern is, it may not take a few months, it may be faster than that.”
Dr. David Chansolme with INTEGRIS has been following the variant because it first made headlines.
“They had several cases a day in South Africa; they went from about 200 to 2100,” he stated. “That was kind of what spawned this search for a new variant.”
He says it’s manner to early to say whether or not this can be kind of virulent than the opposite strains.
“We have to let science play out and we have to let this thing play out,” he stated. “I think fearmongering or anything like that is a little big counterproductive here. We just have to watch what happens here see the science.”
Dr. Clarke says the medical group ought to study extra within the coming days and weeks.
“This is truly an ongoing breaking piece of information and the more we know, probably in the next 24-48 hours, we’ll probably have a lot more data,” she stated.
If it does make its manner to the states, she says we must always be in a position to take a look at for this specific variant, however the quantity of testing stays an unknown.
“The technology is there, it is really just once you set up the testing parameters,” she stated. “The question will be is how many tests we do because we haven’t had a lot of data, a lot of variant testing information out of the Oklahoma State Health Department, so that may be a little bit of a confounding factor that we may or may not get for a while yet.”
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